Staff Software Engineer, Developer Experience

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in United Kingdom, +1 more state.

📋 Description

• Establish the technical vision for significant backend and developer-experience projects spanning Clojure, Go, and related systems.

• Transform unclear product or platform challenges into structured plans, informed decisions, and quantifiable results.

• Design, develop, and manage distributed services, event pipelines, databases, and APIs with a strong emphasis on security and reliability.

• Oversee cross-team project delivery, identify risks early, and eliminate technical or organizational obstacles.

• Provide practical advice regarding the retention, evolution, or replacement of existing components, which includes minimizing legacy Datomic dependencies.

• Collaborate with Product, Design, Security, and engineering teams to align technical investments with developer and business outcomes.

• Enhance observability, incident preparedness, performance, and service ownership.

• Increase engineering efficiency through automation, AI-assisted workflows, and controls.

• Guide senior engineers, elevate design and code review standards, and develop reusable patterns.

• Remain actively involved in implementation, troubleshooting, and participating in the paid on-call rotation.

• Clearly communicate decisions and trade-offs in a remote, asynchronous environment.

• Lead uncertain, cross-team initiatives from problem identification to measurable results while defining architecture and operational standards.

⛳️ Requirements

• Over 8 years of software engineering experience with a focus on technical leadership in scalable production systems.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience.

• Extensive experience in designing, developing, and managing production backend or platform systems.

• Proficient programming skills in at least one production language.

• Capability to become proficient in unfamiliar programming languages and codebases.

• Familiarity with distributed systems, event-driven architectures, APIs, relational or distributed databases, and cloud-native infrastructure.

• Proven history of leading complex projects across team or organizational lines.

• Strong technical and product judgment, including the ability to articulate constraints, alternatives, customer outcomes, and business trade-offs.

• Demonstrated ability to influence without authority and enhance the effectiveness of experienced engineers.

• Operational mindset focusing on observability, resilience, incident response, and on-call responsibility.

• Effective utilization of AI-assisted engineering tools with accountability for results.

• Proficient written and verbal communication skills suitable for a remote, asynchronous work environment.

• Production experience with Go, Clojure, or both is advantageous but not mandatory.

• Familiarity with Spanner, Datomic, Kafka, or other distributed data and streaming platforms is beneficial but not required.

• Experience with build systems, containers, artifact workflows, or developer tooling is a plus but not essential.

• Experience in evolving a platform, database, or language strategy without hindering product delivery is beneficial but not mandatory.

• Experience in developing security or software supply-chain products is a plus but not required.

• Sponsorship will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis according to business needs.

🏝️ Benefits

• Equity

• Freedom and flexibility; tailor your work to fit your life.

• Designated quarterly Whaleness Days along with a year-end Whaleness break.

• Home office setup.

• 16 weeks of paid parental leave (after 6 months of employment).

• Technology stipend equivalent to $100 USD net per month.

• PTO plan that encourages you to take time for activities you enjoy.

• Training stipend for conferences, courses, and classes.

• Docker swag.

• Medical benefits, retirement plans, and holidays vary by country.

• Remote-first culture.