Principal + Staff Software Engineers

Alumni Ventures; Deutschland; On-site; EUR 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision coverage

Unlimited PTO

Flexible parental leave

401(k) options

Competitive referral incentives

Job summary

Madrona Venture Labs is searching for a seasoned software engineer with a strong focus on distributed systems and data architecture. The role involves defining the architecture of a data transformation platform and building scalable distributed systems.

The ideal candidate has over 10 years in software engineering, deep expertise in Kubernetes, and fluency in Postgres. Benefits include day-one medical, dental, vision coverage, unlimited PTO, and a chance to shape foundational technology.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering focused on distributed systems, infrastructure, or data architecture.
• Expertise in Python and capable of building frameworks and performance-critical services.
• Deep expertise in Kubernetes for designing, deploying, and debugging at scale.
• Fluency in Postgres with an understanding of query planning and tuning.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve end-to-end architecture for Unstructured’s data transformation platform.
• Build and scale distributed systems processing massive data volumes.
• Serve as company-wide authority on Kubernetes orchestration and cluster design.
• Lead Python architecture ensuring performance and maintainability.

Skills

Software engineering experience

Python expertise

Kubernetes expertise

Postgres fluency

Experience in high-performance data or AI/ML systems

Ability to lead design reviews

Job description

Location(s) Preferred:

San Francisco, Bay Area, San Jose, Seattle, Sacramento

What You’ll Own & Drive:

• Define and evolve the end-to-end architecture for Unstructured’s data transformation and retrieval platform.
• Build and scale distributed systems that process massive volumes of unstructured data across diverse formats and sources.
• Serve as the company-wide authority on Kubernetes orchestration, cluster design, performance tuning, and reliability.
• Lead Python architecture and best practices—ensuring performance, modularity, and maintainability across services.
• Design and optimize Postgres schemas, queries, and indexing strategies to support large-scale metadata and retrieval pipelines.
• Mentor senior engineers through design reviews and code guidance, raising the bar for technical excellence across the org.
• Partner with the infrastructure and product teams to translate research prototypes into production-grade systems.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and open-source tools in LLM infrastructure, retrieval, and orchestration—deciding where and how to integrate them.

What You Bring:

• Have 10+ years of software engineering experience with a focus on distributed systems, infrastructure, or data architecture.
• Are a Python expert—capable of building frameworks and performance-critical services from scratch.
• Have deep Kubernetes expertise; you can design, deploy, and debug at scale and could teach others how to productionize it securely.
• Are fluent in Postgres—you understand query planning, partitioning, and tuning for high-throughput environments.
• Are obsessed with clean, scalable architecture and can lead design reviews that shape how entire systems evolve.
• Have experience in high-performance data or AI/ML systems—especially those involving retrieval pipelines, embeddings, or hybrid workloads.
• Thrive in fast-moving, ambiguous environments where technical depth and judgment matter more than process.

Bonus Points

• Experience building or scaling LLM-powered or RAG systems in production.
• Familiarity with open-source orchestration frameworks, vector databases, or hybrid cloud infrastructure.
• Contributions to open-source projects in Python, Kubernetes, or distributed systems.

Benefits

We support you holistically, with day‑one medical, dental, and vision coverage (plus life and disability insurance); unlimited PTO; flexible parental leave; 401(k) options; and competitive referral incentives. This is a chance to join early and shape foundational technology while enjoying comprehensive support.

If that sounds like your kind of team, we’d love to meet you.