Software Developer - L5

About the role

We’re looking for a Level 5 Senior Developer to set technical direction beyond a single team. Where our Level 4 Senior Developers own the architecture and delivery of large features within a squad, a Level 5 Senior Developer operates across squads: defining the standards, patterns, and platform capabilities that multiple teams build on. You’ll work on significant and unique problems, exercise independent judgment, and be accountable for technical outcomes that impact the whole R&D function.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction and standards that multiple squads adopt
• Drive alignment on complex cross-team initiatives
• Represent engineering in broader technical and cross-functional discussions – including with leadership
• Architect complex, distributed systems that span multiple services and teams
• Design for high availability and resilience
• Make the platform-level decisions that others build on
• Mentor Senior (L4) developers and help them reach the next level
• Develop future technical leaders
• Create reusable knowledge – documentation, patterns, and tooling – that raises the bar across teams
• Identify and drive organization-wide improvements
• Take ownership of strategic technical initiatives
• See them through obstacles
• Apply economic thinking and pragmatic tradeoffs to decisions that affect the whole function
• Define how teams use AI assistants and AI-powered capabilities effectively – establishing practices, evaluating and piloting emerging tooling, and ensuring acceleration never comes at the cost of quality or security
• Show honesty in all aspects of your work
• Have a low ego and be willing to alter your opinions when a better idea comes along
• Show deep curiosity and research emerging technologies, evaluating them rigorously, and driving adoption of the ones that move the organization forward

Requirements

• Deep, demonstrated expertise in one or more of the following languages and their ecosystems: C#, JavaScript/TypeScript, Python
• A proven track record architecting distributed systems that scale horizontally
• Cloud architecture expertise in Azure and/or AWS, including infrastructure-as-code
• Fluency with event/message-driven architecture and distributed systems patterns
• Strong API design and security experience at scale, including OAuth
• Advanced data modeling – strong SQL and relational databases, plus judgment on when to reach for other stores
• Experience designing CI/CD and deployment strategies (e.g., blue-green, canary, feature flags)
• A working observability strategy – metrics, logging, and tracing, with SLIs/SLOs
• Experience integrating AI/LLM capabilities into production systems
• A track record of mentoring senior engineers and leading technical strategy across more than one team
• Experience giving and receiving code reviews, both live and written

Qualifications

• A Bachelor’s degree plus ~12 years, a Master’s plus ~8 years, a PhD plus ~5 years, or equivalent depth of demonstrated impact

Skills

• Experience with vector databases, RAG, and agentic AI patterns
• Multi-region, high-availability, or disaster-recovery architecture experience
• Familiarity with systems integration and working with an integrated design team
• Experience representing engineering externally – talks, writing, or open source
• An automation mindset

Benefits

• All full-time team members receive a fun, fast-paced work environment
• A responsible PTO plan that meets or exceeds state and local medical and family leave laws
• 11 paid holidays
• Community and social events to keep you connected and engaged
• Mental Health Benefits
• Medical, Dental and Vision insurance
• Company-paid Group Life Insurance, Short- and Long-Term Disability
• Flexible Spending Account & Health Savings Account
• Aflac Benefits – Critical Illness, Cancer Protection, & Hospital Choice
• Pet Insurance
• 2023 401(k) with company match with eligibility on Day 1 of employment
• 2 Paid Volunteer Time Off Days

Pay

$145K - $225K

Schedule

Ncontracts offers flexible schedules to accommodate the needs of our diverse workforce.