Software Development Engineer 2

About the role

iSpot competes for the best talent. Our compensation packages consist of salary and equity in one of Seattle’s hottest start-ups, as well as other standard benefits. Most importantly, we provide a really interesting working experience, and the chance to contribute to the success of something great.

Responsibilities

• Feature Ownership: You own features end-to-end—design, build, ship, and iterate on AI-driven capabilities across data pipelines, APIs, and agent workflows, from technical design through production rollout.
• Coding & Debugging: You are competent in programming and debugging across multiple components and environments. You write high-quality code that includes monitoring, metrics, and logging as standard practice.
• Scoped Technical Decisions: You choose the right tradeoffs on services and components you own. You bring proposals and prototypes to design discussions rather than waiting for direction.
• Testing & Quality: You author and own the testing plan for your features, considering product requirements and edge cases. You perform unit, component, integration, and E2E testing and can differentiate between application bugs and environment issues.
• Code Reviews: You actively participate in code reviews, following team guidelines and best practices to ensure the collective codebase remains healthy, maintainable, and sets the standard for the next engineer who touches it.
• AI-First Workflow: You independently use AI tools (e.g., Kiro, Copilot, Gemini, Cursor) to improve the speed and quality of your work. This includes using AI for code understanding, self-code reviews, and ramping up quickly in new domains or languages.
• Critical Evaluation: You don't blindly accept AI-generated output. You critically evaluate it for correctness, security, and alignment with iSpot standards before relying on it.
• Team Uplift: You help the team get better at working with AI—share patterns that work, flag the ones that don't, and identify enhancements that automate repetitive tasks so you can focus on solving complex problems.
• Production Reliability: You monitor performance, scalability, and cost of the services you build. You respond when things break and participate in the on-call rotation.
• Incident Management: You promptly investigate test failures and production alerts. You are developing the ability to perform Root Cause Analysis (RCA) with limited guidance and contribute to improving system resilience.
• Rapid Iteration: You move fast on prototypes—taking MVPs from idea to validated learning quickly—and know when to harden versus when to throw away.
• Continuous Improvement: You engage with DORA metrics, AI adoption, and PR cycle time as a lean operating model, not as reporting overhead.
• Modern DevOps: You contribute to CI/CD pipelines with human-in-the-loop checks where they matter, driving quality through the full software lifecycle.
• Independence: You complete most assignments independently with little to no supervision, knowing exactly when and how to escalate issues to your manager or senior leads.
• Team Contribution: You help onboard and train new team members and are proactive in building trust through excellent follow-through and integrity.
• Communication: You communicate clearly and concisely, sharing opportunities to improve deliverables or work processes. You work cleanly across engineering, product, and data science.

Qualifications

• Experience: 3–5 years of professional software engineering experience building and operating production systems.
• Technical Proficiency: Strong programming depth in at least one of Java, Python, TypeScript, or Go—and comfort picking up another quickly.
• Demonstrated Ownership: A track record of owning non-trivial features or services in a production environment, including the operational side.
• Cloud Foundation: Solid understanding of AWS (S3, Lambda, EC2) and containerization (Docker).
• Tech Required: Java, MySQL, Git, CI/CD pipelines, REST API design.
• AI Native: Demonstrated ability to use LLMs and AI coding assistants to accelerate your development lifecycle.
• Soft Skills: Strong communication skills with the ability to tailor messaging to different audiences. Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills with a bias for action.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Skills

• Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) and CI/CD tooling (CircleCI).
• Experience in Ad-Tech or high-throughput "Big Data" processing environments.
• A genuine interest in automation, experimentation, and where AI tooling is headed.

Pay

Target cash compensation range: $104,000-126,997 USD Annually

Schedule

iSpot supports a hybrid and flexible workplace. Depending on location and work responsibilities, employees may be designated as full-time or part-time office-based or a fully remote employee. A hybrid work schedule indicates that you work in the office some days and work from home other days. The best hybrid workplaces allow for flexibility while also encouraging consistency.