Senior Product Engineer

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and ship applications from concept to launch. Own meaningful components of the product end-to-end or focus on specific components (frontend, backend, mobile, or data pipelines) as needed.
• Move quickly through rapid prototyping, MVP iteration, pilot, and public launch, making pragmatic tradeoffs between scope, quality, and timing.
• Build integrations with government data sources, including modern APIs, flat-file feeds, open data portals, and older legacy systems that may require creative solutions.
• Partners with product managers, designers, engineers, and other OTI employees on day-to-day product decisions, participate in user research and design reviews, and contribute to scoping and prioritization.
• Coordinate with the wider OTI team on hosting, performance testing, accessibility audits, and security reviews so that products meet the city's quality and production standards.
• Work directly with agency staff, policy advisors, and legal counsel to translate complex eligibility rules and regulations into clear, accurate product logic.
• Write clear technical documentation, runbooks, and architecture notes so that products can be maintained and extended after launch.
• Contribute to reusable patterns, components, and infrastructure that make the next quarter's project faster to ship than the last one.
• Help shape the engineering culture of a small, mission-driven team, including code review, mentorship, and onboarding for future hires.
• Perform special projects and initiatives as assigned.

Requirements

• A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college in computer science, information systems, engineering, mathematics or related field and six years of satisfactory full-time experience related to enterprise architecture, solutions architecture, network architecture and/or IT infrastructure systems; or
• A baccalaureate degree from an accredited college and ten years of satisfactory full-time experience related to enterprise architecture, solutions architecture, network architecture and/or IT infrastructure systems; or
• Education and/or experience which is equivalent to "1" or "2" above.

Preferred Skills

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a track record of shipping production software.
• Full-stack experience, comfortable working across the frontend, backend, and data layer, even if you have a stronger affinity for one of them.
• Direct, hands-on experience taking a product from concept through launch, not only maintaining or extending existing systems.
• Experience working on small, cross-functional product teams alongside product managers, designers, and other engineers.
• Working fluency with modern software development practices, including version control, code review, automated testing, continuous integration and deployment, and observability.
• Strong written and verbal communication. You can explain technical decisions to non-engineers, write clear documentation, and represent the team in conversations with agency partners and senior stakeholders.
• Hands-on experience integrating with legacy systems, such as mainframes, FTP-based data feeds, undocumented APIs, or workflows that begin as PDFs and spreadsheets.
• Practical, day-to-day experience using generative and agentic coding tools in real production workflows, and clear opinions on where they help, where they get in the way, and how to use them responsibly.
• Familiarity with accessibility standards (WCAG 2.1 AA, Section 508) and experience shipping products that meet them.
• Experience with mobile-first responsive design and building for users on low-end devices and slow connections.
• Experience handling user data with appropriate privacy and security practices.
• Experience running or participating in user research, including interviews with members of the public.
• Open-source contributions or other publicly visible work.
• Comfort with ambiguity. Ability to define problems, ask the right questions, and turn it into a buildable plan.