Senior Distributed Systems Engineer

Airship; Portland (OR); Remote; USD 145,000 - 165,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Flexible time off and paid parental leave

Mental health and wellness resources

Employer-subsidised life insurance and disability

Monthly stipend for remote work

Mentorship and growth opportunities

Job summary

A tech company is seeking a distributed systems engineer to join their Shared Services team. This fully remote position involves coding in Java, enhancing system performance, and collaborating on distributed systems challenges. Ideal candidates should have strong communication and Java programming skills, alongside experience with data-intensive systems and cloud platforms. Competitive compensation of $145,000 to $165,000 per year, with additional benefits and stock options included.

Qualifications

• Experience writing Java and familiarity with industry best practices.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills.
• Hands-on experience designing and maintaining data-intensive systems.
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently and in a team environment.
• Experience with cloud platforms, preferably Google Cloud Platform.

Responsibilities

• Read, understand, and write code and unit tests, primarily in Java.
• Investigate, diagnose, and implement improvements for performance bottlenecks.
• Implement, test, and deploy architecture changes that enable new insights.
• Respond to performance issues identified internally and by customers.
• Collaborate with other backend engineers to solve distributed systems problems.

Skills

Java programming

Communication skills

Data-intensive systems

Cloud platforms

Job description

About Airship

Airship is trusted by world’s leading brands such as Alaska Airlines, BBC and The Home Depot to drive revenue growth and customer loyalty with exceptional cross-channel customer experiences. Today, brands are challenged to deliver seamless, unified customer experiences across a fragmented array of channels and devices— apps, websites, email, SMS, wallets and more.

Airship’s no-code, AI-powered platform was designed with non-technical, growth-focused teams in mind, making it easy to create, test and orchestrate hyper-personalised experiences across all channels. With the ability to easily enrich customer data and rapidly launch growth experiments, Airship enables brands to deliver consistent, meaningful interactions that accelerate conversion and foster deeper customer relationships.

We invite you to be part of our journey in building products and delivering services that touch millions of customers around the world every day.

To learn more about us, visit www.airship.com, read our blog or follow us on LinkedIn.

About the Team

Airship powers customer engagement for some of the world’s most recognised brands, processing billions of mobile app interactions through a large-scale distributed data system. The Shared Services team works to improve the efficiency, reliability, and visibility of that system through shared libraries, platform improvements, and automation/tooling.

About the Role

We’re looking for a distributed systems engineer to expand the reach and effectiveness of our small Shared Services team. The ideal candidate uses their skills, experience, and curiosity to explore the system, which includes Java services, Bigtable, Pub/Sub, CloudSQL, and Big Query. You’ll be hypothesizing, testing theories, documenting observations, and leveraging changes to improve our entire architecture, not just implementing targeted features.

What You’ll Do

• Read, understand, and write code and unit tests (primarily in Java)
• Investigate, diagnose, and implement improvements for performance bottlenecks and cost inefficiencies
• Implement, test, and deploy architecture and library changes which enable new insights and understanding, including cost modelling/reporting and data patterns
• Respond to performance and reliability issues identified internally and by customers
• Collaborate with other backend engineers to solve a broad range of distributed systems problems

What You Bring

Required

• Experience writing Java and familiarity with industry best practices
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Hands‑on experience designing and maintaining data-intensive systems
• Demonstrated ability to work both independently, and in a team environment
• Experience with a cloud platform (Google Cloud Platform preferred)

Nice to Have

• Memory optimisation and performance tuning of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
• Experience working with streaming and batch workloads
• Experience improving, adapting, and extending a mature codebase

Work Location & Travel Requirements

Airship’s 'Digital First' approach to work means that for the majority of our roles, work can be performed remotely, either some or most of the time. Airship believes that flexible work contributes to a more productive and more equitable work environment, and that Airshippers are able to collaborate, innovate, and support one another across different locations and timezones.

Some roles may require that employees perform their work from a specific location to support business activities, and/or be within proximity to an Airship office location or customer or partner locations, while other roles can be performed 100% remotely.

This position is fully remote and may require up to 10% travel based on business needs or as requested by your manager.

Compensation

The starting base pay range for this position is: $145,000 - $165,000 USD per year. Base pay is part of the total compensation package and is determined by a variety of factors such as relevant skills, work experience, business priorities, market demands, and location. This role offers stock options, providing a direct opportunity to share in Airship’s success.

Benefits & Perks

• Competitive medical, dental, and vision insurance options for you and your dependents
• Flexible time off, company paid holidays, paid parental leave, and paid volunteer time off
• Support for your overall wellbeing with mental health and wellness resources
• Employer-subsidised life insurance as well as short-term and long-term disability
• A digital-first work environment and a monthly stipend to support remote work
• Mentorship and growth opportunities to build skills and accelerate professional development
• And more!

California residents can view the CCPA disclosure notice here.

Candidates outside of the U.S. can view Airship's Privacy Statement here.

Please Note: To ensure the security of your personal information, Airship will only contact candidates through email addresses ending with '@airship.com'.

Hiring Commitment

Airship is committed to fostering a diverse work environment and providing equal employment opportunities to all applicants and employees. We welcome your application and our hiring and employment decisions are made irrespective of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other characteristic protected by law. In alignment with our commitment to equal opportunity, Airship will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a way that adheres to the principles of fairness and the requirements of local Fair Chance laws, where applicable.

By submitting this application, I affirm that the facts set forth in it are true and complete to the best of my knowledge. I understand that if I am employed, false statements, omissions, or misleading information given in my application, interview(s), or in a background check may result in dismissal.