Staff Software Engineer, API

Asana; Vancouver; On-site; CAD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

Asana in Vancouver, Canada, is seeking an experienced Technical Lead for the Developer Platform/API team. You will shape API strategy, mentor engineers, and collaborate across product, design, data science, and user research to deliver developer-friendly APIs.

You’ll own architectural decisions, improve API design and security, and drive velocity while growing technical capabilities across the team.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience working in large codebases
• 2+ years leading engineering teams
• 1+ years building public-facing API products or Developer Platforms
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and delegation skills
• Mentoring engineers and providing candid feedback
• Strong project and stakeholder management

Responsibilities

• Asana API enables external developers to extend functionality and supports customer use cases
• Lead Developer Platform to drive execution and technical vision
• Oversee exposure of new functionality via API and security model, and rearchitect API frameworks as needed
• Set technical strategy for the API platform within Asana with a focus on flexibility and maintainability
• Drive the team to improve velocity and developer growth
• Collaborate with Engineering Manager and cross-functional teams
• Partner with Product, Design, Data Science, and User Research to understand developer needs and propose elegant solutions
• Own guidelines for good API design and promote self-serve best practices
• Develop across the stack with Scala, Javascript, and Typescript

Skills

Large codebases experience

Engineering leadership

API products / Developer Platforms

Communication

Mentoring engineers

AI curiosity

Tools

Scala

Javascript

Typescript

Job description

Requirements

• If you care deeply about building effective developer experiences and high-performing engineering teams, then we’d love to hear from you!
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• 6+ years of experience working in large codebases
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• 2+ years leading engineering teams
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• 1+ years building public-facing API products or Developer Platforms
,
• Excellent communication, collaboration, and delegation skills
,
• Quick learner and comfortable transitioning between different contexts and codebases, enabling you to jump in and rapidly unblock teammates facing thorny obstacles
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• Deep project management experience including high-level timeline planning, risk mitigation, stakeholder management, and coordinating the work of others
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• Passionate about mentoring engineers at all skill levels; able to identify technical growth opportunities and deliver thoughtful, candid feedback
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• Excited to be a part of an inclusive culture where everyone brings the aspects of themselves to the workplace that they need to thrive, fostering an environment of psychological safety within your team
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• Demonstrate curiosity about AI tools and emerging technologies, with a willingness to learn and leverage them to enhance productivity, collaboration, or decision-making
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• At Asana, we're committed to building teams that include a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills, as this is critical to helping us achieve our mission. If you're interested in this role and don't meet every listed requirement, we still encourage you to apply

What the job involves

• Asana’s API gives external developers the power and flexibility to extend Asana's functionality in creative ways that Asana doesn't yet provide. In turn, this rich ecosystem of apps, integrations, and scripts helps us ensure that Asana can support every customer use case out there – no matter how big or small the team, and no matter which tools or workflows they use. The API team at Asana builds the Developer Platform that makes this possible; we own the gateway that facilitates data flow in and out of Asana
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• We’re looking for an experienced Technical Lead to help us make our Developer Platform come to life, driving execution and technical vision for the team
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• Your scope will range from assisting product teams in exposing new functionality via the API, to overseeing foundational changes to our API’s core features and security model, to rearchitecting the underlying API frameworks for simplicity and ease-of-use, to mentoring and growing the engineers and developer advocates on the team
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• Set the technical strategy for the API platform within Asana and advocate for engineering-driven investments, with a vision for keeping our systems flexible and maintainable to meet customer needs now and in the future
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• Drive the team to continually and holistically better itself, enabling the engineers around you to deliver at a high velocity while helping them grow their skills in the process
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• Be a key collaborator with other groups in Engineering and a technical counterpart to the API team’s Engineering Manager, serving as a public face for API engineering and representing our interests across team boundaries
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• Partner with Product Management, Design, Data Science, and User Research to deeply understand developer needs, and then propose elegant solutions to meet them
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• Own and shape the guidelines for what good API design looks like, partnering with product engineering teams to help them implement those best practices in a self-serve manner
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• Develop across the entire stack to make developers’ experiences better by writing clean, beautiful code and leaving things better than you found them: this includes writing Scala, Javascript, and Typescript