Staff Engineer

Who you are

• 5–8 years of professional software engineering experience
• Proven, hands-on experience building and operating large-scale cloud-distributed systems
• Strong proficiency in Go and Python
• Demonstrated experience technically leading a small team and mentoring junior engineers on architecture and implementation
• Strong communication skills
• Proven experience with distributed systems, microservices, and event-driven architectures
• Fundamental understanding of computer networking (including Wi-Fi), operating systems, and databases
• Hands-on expertise in AWS (primary cloud) and container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker); GCP experience a plus
• Experience with real-time streaming (Kafka/Pulsar) and batch data pipeline frameworks (e.g., Spark)
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB)
• Solid knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, testing frameworks, and observability tools (Grafana, Prometheus, ELK)
• Comfortable in a fully remote, globally distributed team as this role requires daily overlap with teammates in various geographies
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to thrive in an agile, squad-based environment; focused on technical/architectural decision-making rather than business-facing work
• Scala experience (legacy stack)
• Experience with caching layers, distributed storage, and message queues
• Familiarity with AI-powered developer tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, or similar to boost productivity
• Contributions to open-source projects or personal projects showcasing backend innovation

What the job involves

• As part of our Connectivity Services team within Product Engineering, you will play a critical role in architecting and building highly scalable, high-performance backend systems that power our connectivity services products. This is a Staff, Individual Contributor role based in the US (East Coast/Midwest preferred) and is a full-stack backend engineering role spanning microservices, APIs, real-time and batch data pipelines, and distributed cloud architecture & development
• Architecture & Distributed Systems: Architect and build large-scale cloud-distributed systems including microservices, streaming and batch data pipelines, and databases, operating at scale (tens of millions of locations, not small-scale systems)
• API Development: Design, implement, and maintain RESTful and gRPC APIs powering internal and external applications
• Cloud Microservices: Architect and deploy scalable microservices on AWS and GCP using Kubernetes and modern DevOps practices
• Data Pipelines: Build both real-time/streaming and offline/batch data pipelines, ensuring data accuracy, performance, and observability. Build Machine Learning pipelines to produce actionable insights that can feed into algorithms and Agentic software
• Legacy + New Architecture: Support and maintain the existing production stack while contributing to and helping shape the new cloud architecture
• Technical Leadership: Technically lead and mentor a small team, including guiding junior engineers on architecture and implementation
• Collaboration: Partner with cross-functional squad members and peer staff/senior engineers to deliver features end-to-end, from concept to production
• System Reliability: Optimize services for scalability, resilience, and high availability
• Engineering Excellence: Contribute to architecture discussions, enforce coding standards, and drive best practices in CI/CD, testing, and monitoring
• Security: Embed security and compliance into backend systems and data workflows

Benefits

• Lifetime Plume HomePass membership
• Allowance for home-office set up
• Monthly data or phone allowance
• Plume employee referral bonus program
• Public transportation reimbursement
• Retirement savings contributions
• Employee discounts
• Patent submission support and incentive award program
• Competitive and comprehensive health insurance coverage and extended benefits such as dental, vision, life, short/long-term disability insurance, and FSA/HSA (detailed coverage may vary by location)
• Employee assistance program
• Generous vacation policy to ensure time to recharge (open paid time off or generous accrued paid time off based on location)
• Health and wellness reimbursement and a Premium Strava membership
• Holistic health platform through Walking on Earth
• Generous parental leave policy
• Online and in-person team-building events
• PlumeStrong - our corporate social responsibility program designed to apply our resources (time, brainpower, product, money) for good
• Remote/flexible work arrangements
• Professional development opportunities
• Immigration support