Principal Software Engineer, Performance

RStudio; United States; Remote; USD 125,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading software firm in the United States is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the development of a performance benchmarking tool. You will be responsible for establishing performance standards, developing internal dashboards, and cultivating a performance-driven culture. The ideal candidate has significant software development experience and a strong foundation in performance analysis. This role offers competitive compensation and an opportunity to contribute to impactful software for users worldwide.

Benefits

100% covered medical, dental, and vision insurance

Generous vacation policy

401k with company match

$400 monthly coworking reimbursement

Annual profit-sharing bonus

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in software development.
• Proven track record of building developer tools or observability platforms.
• Strong understanding of performance testing methodologies.

Responsibilities

• Design and build an open-source benchmarking tool.
• Establish performance baselines for professional products.
• Develop dashboards for internal performance visibility.

Skills

Software development experience

Linux systems

Kubernetes

Performance analysis

Programming (Go, Python, Rust, C++)

Mentoring

User-focused problem solving

Job description

About the Role

Posit is seeking a principal software engineer with deep expertise in performance and scalability to lead a strategic function for our professional products. Your primary task will be to help development teams and thousands of customers by creating tools that define and measure performance across Posit's entire product suite. Posit produces a family of on-premise and cloud-based software products for data science, scientific research, and technical communication, so your work has the potential to improve the user experience of scientists around the world.

You will head the development of a new, open-source benchmarking tool specific to Posit that builds upon existing tests and frameworks. It will establish standards for both our internal teams and our global user base. You will also be the organization's leading expert and advocate on performance, translating complex metrics into impact and cultivating a "performance-first" mindset throughout our engineering culture.

What you'll own:

• Design, build, and champion a reusable, open-source benchmarking tool. This tool will be a cornerstone of our performance strategy, providing a consistent and extensible platform for both internal engineering teams and customers.
• Establish the performance and load baselines for our professional products. You will work with teams to understand their existing performance tests and use this along with the benchmarking tool to determine what good looks like.
• Develop and maintain dashboards for internal visibility on performance. Using the tools and tests, you will maintain a centralized dashboard for tracking.
• Cultivate a "performance-first" mindset across our engineering organization. You will be a key teacher and mentor, elevating the knowledge of our development teams.

What you’ll collaborate on:

• Work with product and engineering leaders to embed performance into our roadmaps.
• Meet with customers to explain how they can best use our products and listen to what they need.

What you’ll learn:

• Posit products and how their data science customers use them.
• Any languages and technology we use, for the portions you don't know already.
• Practical data science using R and Python (don’t worry- you don’t need that when you start).

About you

• You have at least 8+ years of experience in software development, with a proven track record of building developer tools, testing frameworks, observability platforms, or other high-leverage, systems-level software.
• You have a strong, fundamental understanding of Linux systems, Kubernetes, and how software performance is impacted by underlying compute, storage, and networking infrastructure.
• You possess a deep and practical understanding of performance analysis, load testing methodologies, and scalability engineering for complex distributed systems.
• You are proficient in at least one modern programming language (e.g., Go, Python, Rust, C++) and are enthusiastic about learning the languages and technologies used across the Posit ecosystem.
• You are curious and excited about exploring AI technologies, including how LLMs might be leveraged in the development of the new benchmarking tool
• You are an exceptional communicator and mentor who finds satisfaction in helping other engineers learn and succeed.
• You are user-focused, pragmatic, and deliberate in your approach to problem-solving, with a keen sense of empathy for both your coworkers and the users we serve.
• You are driven by our mission to facilitate science and education for everyone and appreciate the unique values of working for a Public Benefit Corporation.

Working at Posit:

• You should be aware we welcome all talented colleagues and are committed to a culture that represents diversity in all its forms.
• We prioritize giving ourselves “focus time” to get deep work done. We minimize meetings and attempt to operate asynchronously.
• We are a learning organization and take mentorship and career growth seriously. We hope to learn from you and we anticipate that you will also deepen your skills, influence, and leadership as a result of working at Posit.
• We operate under a unique sustainable business model: We have over 50% of our engineering dedicated to creating free and open source software. We are profitable and we plan to be around decades from now.
• Posit is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) and a Certified B Corporation®, which means our open-source mission is codified into our charter. As a result, our corporate decisions balance the community's interests, customers, employees, and shareholders. Hear more about why we think this matters here.

Notable:

• You will receive competitive compensation with extensive human-first, people-focused benefits to prioritize your personal and financial well-being. These benefits apply to full-time positions only.
• 100% of medical, dental, and vision insurance premiums are covered for employees and their families. Fertility and gender-affirming healthcare is included in all plans.
• Supplemental mental health and wellness benefits are available via Ginger even if you don’t opt in to our insurance plans, including Ginger for teen family members.
• Posit's gender-neutral paid parental leave policy covers all new parents, including foster and adoptive parents.
• All full-time employees are eligible for 401k enrollment starting on day one.
• After six months of employment, Posit provides a substantial yearly match to employee 401K contributions.
• An annual profit-sharing bonus for employees recognizes our team’s contributions to company performance across the year.
• We are a 100% distributed team. You are also welcome to come into our Boston office.
• We offer a $400 monthly reimbursement for coworking space rental if you prefer to work away from home.
• Our Lifestyle Savings Account offers an initial deposit of $1800 and then an additional quarterly stipend of $375 to cover the costs of professional development, wellness, financial health, charitable giving, and remote work support.
• We provide a flexible environment with a generous vacation policy that encourages a minimum of four weeks PTO per year plus 13 paid company holidays.

Are you excited about this role but not sure if your experience aligns with every qualification in the job description? That’s okay. We know multiple perspectives are essential for a thriving organization and we'd still love to hear from you!

Posit is committed to being a diverse and inclusive workplace. We encourage applicants of different backgrounds, cultures, genders, experiences, abilities, and perspectives to apply. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, age, physical disability, or length of time spent unemployed.

Posit Software, PBC participates in the federal E-Verify program, which confirms employment authorization of newly hired U.S. based employees. E-Verify is not used as a tool to pre-screen candidates and is only initiated upon hire.

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