Jobs · Engineering · California

Staff Software Engineer - Investor/Owner

AppFolio · Santa Barbara, CA · 1 wk ago
Engineering$167k–$209k/yrFull-time

About the role

We are looking for a pioneering technical leader to join a young, high-growth, cross-functional product development team and help drive the engineering growth and evolution of our Investor segment. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will design and build best-in-class app experiences, transforming sophisticated business needs into robust, production-grade SaaS infrastructure and pages.

The ideal candidate thrives in a highly collaborative environment, applies the latest in generative AI-assisted techniques to build innovative products, and is passionate about leading-edge software. You will help build a successful SaaS product used by a large and growing audience of property managers and owners, holding yourself to the highest standard of technical excellence while mentoring others in a high-stakes, high-scale environment.

Responsibilities

  • Drive the technical vision and strategy across the Owner subsegment, influencing the product roadmap and making key architectural decisions that align with business goals.
  • Lead the design and implementation of complex, distributed systems that power our next-generation products, preparing our systems for a 10x increase in traffic and engagement.
  • Act as a force multiplier by coaching engineers and fostering a high-trust, autonomous culture where continuous learning and ownership are the norms.
  • Collaborate as a peer with Product, Design, and Machine Learning leaders to bridge the gap between "what’s possible" in AI and "what’s valuable" for our customers.
  • Operate in a highly autonomous team that owns the full lifecycle of solutions you build, from discovery to development to production.
  • Proactively research, share, and apply new technologies and patterns that improve system quality and accelerate delivery.
  • Use test-driven development, code reviews, and continuous integration to deliver high-quality software and rapidly fix bugs as they come up.

Requirements

  • 8+ years of experience developing and scaling web-based applications, preferably in a SaaS environment.
  • A track record of leading high-stakes projects from initial ambiguity to successful launch—aligning stakeholders, making tough technical trade-offs, and ensuring long-term system health.
  • Experience leading architectural discussions, defining system design, and guiding technical decision-making.
  • Proactively adopted AI tooling into your daily workflow; you understand how to prompt, iterate, and validate AI-generated output to maintain the highest standards of excellence.
  • A pragmatic approach to technology, adopting new tools where they add value while mastering proven technologies.
  • Advocacy for long-term maintainability, clean architecture, and continuous refactoring and improvement.
  • Ability to balance intensity and sustainability—going the extra mile when needed but modeling healthy work-life balance.
  • Ability to solve complex problems without a roadmap.
  • Passion for learning and using new tech, but understanding the value of leveraging existing technology when it gets the job done.
  • Commitment to code cleanliness, identifying and resolving code-smells through sensible refactoring.

Nice to have

  • Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Ph.D. in Computer Science or related technical discipline.
  • Experience with technologies in our stack such as Ruby on Rails, Golang, React, AWS, or service-oriented architectures.

Pay

The base salary that we reasonably expect to pay for this role is $167,200 - $209,000. The actual base salary will be determined by a variety of factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s skills, education, and experience.

Benefits

Regular full-time employees are eligible for benefits. The base pay range indicated here does not include additional benefits or bonuses that you may be eligible for based on your role and/or employment type.

  • Grow: Culture of high performance, where delivering results is recognized by opportunities for growth and compelling total rewards. Challenging and meaningful work that drives the growth of our business and yourself.
  • Learn: Investment in your potential from the start through coaching, mentorship, and development tools.
  • Impact: Innovate with purpose while cultivating a culture of impact, learning as much from each other as from customers and communities.
  • Connect: Hybrid work environment that feels flexible, personal, and connected, with opportunities to celebrate, collaborate, and succeed together.

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