Staff Software Engineer

About the role

We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer who wants real ownership in a fast-moving environment.

You'll help design, build, deploy, and operate the software that runs Urban Sky's manufacturing operation—a full-stack MRP system that tracks inventory, work orders, bills of materials, quality holds, and serialized parts from receiving through final integration. It's the operational backbone of how we actually build balloons.

The interfaces you build are for operators, not consumers. A shop-floor tech holding a tablet, scanning a barcode, working through a multi-step assembly procedure—that's your user. Touch targets, scanner integration, and drag-and-drop work instructions matter more than landing-page polish.

We operate in an aerospace-regulated environment (AS9100). Every mutation needs an audit trail. Serialized parts need end-to-end traceability. "Move fast and break things" doesn't apply to production data. We still move fast—but with the discipline that comes from knowing a corrupted record can ground a flight.

What You'll Do

• Set up your environment and start committing code within your first day or two
• Learn existing systems by improving them, not by watching from the sidelines
• Fix bugs, tighten rough edges, and ship small enhancements to production
• Participate in deployments, debugging, and operational workflows
• Use AI tools from the start to understand the codebase and accelerate contributions
• Ask questions, propose improvements, and engage in technical decisions

What you will grow quickly into

• Own meaningful areas of our stack across backend, frontend, and infrastructure
• Lead design and implementation of projects that may span quarters
• Make architectural decisions with an eye toward reliability, operability, and future change
• Work directly with operators and stakeholders—often non-engineers—to refine solutions
• Drive systems from concept → implementation → production → iteration → support
• Continuously simplify, improve, and evolve what you own
• Help the team move faster by raising technical quality and reducing friction

Engineering Principles

• Design for operations, not just implementation
• Favor simple, adaptable systems
• Own the full lifecycle
• Build reliability through feedback
• Use abstraction sparingly and intentionally
• Scale and evolve based on evidence
• Leverage AI with engineering judgment
• Embrace iteration as the default

Ai-Assisted Development

• Use AI tools daily for implementation, debugging, refactoring, and exploration
• Adapt quickly as tools, models, and workflows evolve
• Apply strong judgment to AI-generated code—you're accountable for what ships, not the model
• Use AI to build production systems, not just prototypes
• Treat AI as leverage, not a replacement for understanding

What we are looking for

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience
• Strong fundamentals in system design, data structures, and architecture
• Experience building and operating backend systems at scale
• Solid instincts for data modeling, schema design, and SQL
• Comfort with cloud infrastructure and modern DevOps practices
• Experience owning production systems in environments that evolve quickly
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate as priorities shift

Technologies

• TypeScript / JavaScript
• React, Vite, Mantine UI
• tRPC for API contracts
• PostgreSQL (raw SQL and migrations, not just an ORM)
• ClickHouse for analytics
• Playwright for end-to-end testing
• AWS, Terraform, Docker
• CI/CD pipelines

Benefits

• Salary $150,000 - $180,000 per year
• Stock Options
• Medical, Vision and Dental
• Unlimited Vacation Days
• Cell Phone Bill Stipend