Job Description
Job Description
About the Role
The Staff Software Engineer is a technical leader who operates across multiple projects and teams. You define architecture and engineering standards for a broader area of the product, driving technical excellence at scale. Working across backend, web, Android device platforms, companion apps, and embedded Linux — as well as Java with Spring Boot, TypeScript (Vue/React), Python, AWS/Azure, microservices, event-driven systems, and serverless architectures — you ensure our systems are scalable, reliable, and well-designed. You combine deep technical expertise with the ability to influence and align multiple teams toward shared technical goals.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and drive microservices architecture across multiple products and teams
- Establish engineering standards, patterns, and best practices adopted across the organization
- Define Spring Boot service patterns, standards, and shared libraries used across teams
- Lead technical design for complex, cross-team initiatives spanning Java, TypeScript, and Python services
- Own CI/CD strategy and DevOps practices for your area, improving deployment velocity and reliability
- Design and implement event-driven systems at scale using SNS/SQS, EventBridge, and Kafka
- Architect serverless solutions using Lambda, Step Functions, and associated AWS/Azure services
- Drive cloud infrastructure decisions across ECS, DynamoDB, RDS, S3, CloudFront, and related services
- Mentor Senior engineers and contribute to the growth of the broader engineering team
- Collaborate with Engineering Managers and Product leadership on technical roadmap and prioritization
- Lead technical design reviews and ensure architectural consistency across teams
- Identify strategic technical investments and drive adoption of new technologies
- Contribute to hiring processes including interview design and competency bar definition
- Drive reliability, observability, and performance improvements across services
- Resolve complex cross-service technical challenges and production incidents
Required Qualifications
- Extensive professional experience with demonstrated progression through engineering levels
- Expert-level proficiency in Java with deep experience in Spring Boot microservices architecture, and TypeScript (Vue/React) for full-stack development
- Proven experience defining microservices architecture across multiple products
- Proven ability to define architecture spanning multiple delivery surfaces — backend, web, Android device platforms, companion apps, and/or embedded Linux — making informed decisions about where application logic lives and how platforms communicate
- Deep AWS or Azure expertise including ECS, Lambda, Step Functions, DynamoDB, RDS, S3, and CloudFront
- Experience designing and operating event-driven systems at scale
- CI/CD strategy ownership and DevOps best practices across multiple teams
- Experience with Python for automation, data processing, or AI/ML integration
- Track record leading technical design across teams and driving consensus on architecture
- Strong background in system design, scalability, and reliability engineering
- Recommends architecture approaches involving data storage — understands scalability, consistency models, partitioning, replication, operational concerns, and organization-wide data patterns across SQL and NoSQL systems
- Proven mentorship of engineers at multiple levels
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to influence without authority
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with AI/LLM integration including RAG, multi-agent workflows, or computer vision
- Public safety or mission-critical domain experience
- Multi-tenant SaaS architecture design and implementation
- Infrastructure as code expertise (Terraform, CDK)
- Performance engineering at scale across distributed systems
- Security architecture and threat modeling experience
- Experience defining hiring standards and competency bars for engineering teams
- Contributions to engineering blog posts, conference talks, or open-source projects
- Experience with Android platform development for specialized devices — custom builds, device policies, background service architecture, BLE/hardware integration, and OTA delivery for field-deployed Android hardware.
- Experience evaluating cross-platform approaches (React Native) for companion app development and making build-vs-maintain decisions for low-volume, high-importance mobile apps.
- Embedded Linux application architecture — service frameworks, deployment pipelines, and managing platform evolution (e.g., Ubuntu to Yocto migration paths).
Key Competencies
- Technical Leadership: Drives architecture decisions across multiple teams and products, establishing patterns that scale
- Systems Thinking: Understands complex interactions across Spring Boot microservices, event-driven systems, and cloud infrastructure to make well-reasoned trade-offs
- Engineering Judgment: Makes sound technical decisions under uncertainty, balancing short-term delivery with long-term sustainability
- Cross-functional Collaboration: Partners effectively with product, design, and engineering leadership to align technical strategy with business goals
- Mentorship and Team Development: Elevates the skills and judgment of Senior engineers and contributes to team growth
- Communication: Articulates complex technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences, from engineers to executives
- Ownership: Takes responsibility for technical outcomes across a broad area, proactively identifying and addressing risks