Software Engineer – Backend U.S. based applicants only

General description

Synoptic Data is a Public Benefit Corporation with a mission of providing access to weather and environmental data to support decisions that save lives, protect property, and enhance our understanding of Earth systems. Our vision is to be the world’s largest and most trusted source for real-time global weather and environmental data.

The Backend Software Engineer will have a core role in further developing Synoptic’s platform to enable high-volume/real-time data ingest, storage, quality control, and data dissemination. In addition, this role will help support a suite of value-add derived products and a Data Viewer web application. As our data and customer volume grows, we are building new products and services, and modernizing legacy systems to meet performance and compliance requirements. Our stack is cloud-native (AWS) and optimized to support low-latency applications.

Synoptic is a Public Benefit Corp and certified B Corporation. In addition to a focus on revenue, we are accountable to all stakeholders including data providers, data users, our employees, our communities, and the general public. With significant government and commercial contracts in place, Synoptic is accelerating growth both domestically and internationally.

We are currently a 100% remote company that is distributed throughout the U.S. This role is limited to U.S. or Canada based applicants only, and will require travel for in-person meetings 1-2 times per year. Candidates should be proactive, self-driven, accountable under minimal supervision to reach project goals, and comfortable working with internal and external teams locally and remotely.

At Synoptic we believe in the importance of authentic interactions and equitable opportunities. We base our selection on a candidate’s skills, knowledge, and experience. To ensure the integrity and fairness of our interview process, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools (including Generative AI) or other means to generate or assist with responses during interviews is strictly prohibited.

Essential Job Functions

• Build, test, deploy, and maintain new and existing software products and services
• Contribute to data pipeline engineering in support of new data ingest
• Engineer solutions for scalable and high-availability deployments, using modern CI/CD workflows
• Build and maintain monitoring and alerting tools for high-volume data streams
• Contribute to data storage solutions (SQL and no-SQL)
• Collaborate across teams to ensure understanding and coordination between interconnected projects
• Work in an operational environment, occasionally requiring responsiveness outside of normal working hours
• Contribute to the professional growth of yourself and other developers within the company

Qualifications

Required

• BS or advanced degree in computer science or a related field (mathematics, earth or atmospheric sciences), with minimum 3-4 years of software development experience supporting a production/operational environment
• Command of Python
• Familiarity with Python web frameworks (e.g. Tornado, FastAPI, Django)
• Experience creating data processing pipelines for real-time, event-driven or high volume data
• Familiarity with SQL, no-SQL, and relational database principles
• Familiarity with cloud architecture including serverless computing and managed services (AWS preferred)
• CI/CD principles and testable, maintainable and observable software
• Understands basic concepts of Microservices, HTTP APIs and RESTful API design
• Comfortable with git/GitHub and working collaboratively with other developers
• Self-driven and able to deliver quality results with minimal supervision in a fully-remote working environment
• Excellent oral and written communicator

Desired

• Experience working with big data sets
• Front-end development experience and knowledge of web-based authentication and sessioning concepts
• Experience working with and refactoring legacy code
• Interest or background in atmospheric science or meteorology
• Alignment with Synoptic’s public benefit mission

Cultural Fit

Synoptic provides industry-competitive compensation commensurate with experience. Benefits include a flexible time-off/vacation policy, comprehensive health insurance plans with HSA contributions, retirement contributions, and parental leave.

ADA Physical and Mental Requirements

Regular reading, writing, speaking and understanding English. Frequent interactions require good interpersonal skills, teamwork, customer service and use of discretion. Regular decision making, independent judgment, problem analysis. Frequent talking, repetitive motions of hands/wrists, sitting, hearing and keyboarding. Occasional lifting, bending, or carrying.

Additional Information

Synoptic offers talented and motivated individuals the opportunity to do important work in a dynamic and growing Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) determined to make a difference. Synoptic believes that each employee makes a significant contribution to our success. Therefore, this job description is designed to outline primary duties and qualifications, but not limit the employee or the organization to only the work identified. Our expectation is that every employee will offer his/her/their services wherever necessary to ensure our growth and success, and that of our clients and customers.

Synoptic maintains a discrimination-free work environment where employees are treated with dignity and respect. Our team members share responsibility for and commitment to equal employment opportunity. Synoptic does not discriminate based on age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We adhere to these principles in all aspects of employment, including recruitment, hiring, training, compensation, promotion, evaluation, and benefits. Synoptic provides reasonable accommodation to qualified employees who have protected disabilities to the extent required by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances where a particular employee works.