Software Development Engineer II, Location AI

Rocket Lab; United States; Remote; USD 157,000 - 214,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading company in the field of real-time location services is seeking a Software Development Engineer II for their Location AI team. The role involves developing robust backend systems and collaborating across teams to enhance the user experience while managing dynamic traffic loads. Candidates should have extensive experience in backend services and a solid grasp of current machine learning technologies.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience building scalable high volume low latency backend services.
• Proficient in Python, TypeScript (backend), and AWS technologies.
• Experience with scaling systems in response to dynamic traffic.

Responsibilities

• Balance rapid development of navigation solutions with service reliability.
• Collaborate to scope out tasks and deliver on time with quality.
• Promote operational excellence and reduce technical debt.

Skills

Python

TypeScript

AWS

ML Technologies

Job description

Mapbox is the leading real-time location platform for a new generation of location-aware businesses. Mapbox is the only platform that equips organizations with the full set of tools to power the navigation of people, packages, and vehicles everywhere. More than 4 million registered developers have chosen Mapbox because of the platform’s flexibility, security and privacy compliance. Organizations use Mapbox applications, data, SDKs and APIs to create customized and immersive experiences that delight their customers.

What We Do

The Location AI team is working on a product that enables rich, natural, and in-depth explorations about places and all dynamic aspects of the world, continuously refreshed using real-time data from Mapbox. As AI applications become the new primary interface for users, we’re building the foundational systems that allow these applications to understand and interact with the physical world in contextually relevant, accurate, and up-to-date ways.

Our team is at the forefront of implementing the model context protocol and AI agent infrastructure that powers this new era of spatial intelligence. We focus on designing interfaces between foundational models and geospatial data, enabling agents to reason about location in ways that feel intuitive and grounded. By treating AI apps as our customer, we craft systems that are modular, scalable, and deeply aligned with how agents learn, plan, and assist.

What You'll Do

As a Software Development Engineer II on the Location AI team, you will be responsible for balancing rapid development of new navigation solutions against the reliability of our services as they scale into new request volumes, markets, and use cases. In a single week, you might write application code robust to a world’s worth of data, build and deploy microservices, diagnose complex system behaviors as global markets drive traffic in unexpected ways, or facilitate continuous delivery at Mapbox.

In this role, you can expect to:

• Collaborate with your team to identify and scope out well-defined tasks

• Execute on the scope and be accountable for delivering on time with quality

• Design systems and make decisions that will keep pace with the rapid growth of Mapbox’s customer base

• Promote a culture of operational excellence by meticulously testing and monitoring our systems and code, writing documentation, and being on-call to support the health of our services

• Reduce technical debt, share your knowledge, and invest in your teammates’ health and happiness, while optimizing application performance and accelerating feature velocity

• Uphold a culture of collaboration, transparency, creativity, inclusion, and data-driven decisions

What We Believe are Important Traits for This Role

• Located in the US Eastern Time Zone.

• 5+ years of experience building scalable high volume low latency backend services

• Proficiency in our tech stack — Python, TypeScript (backend), and AWS (CDK/ECS/Step Functions/Lambda/S3)

• Enthusiasm for staying current with rapidly evolving ML technologies and ability to quickly apply new learnings to improve our products.

• Ability to translate ML capabilities into tangible product features, understanding that your work directly impacts the end-user experience.

• Skillful in balancing theoretical knowledge with practical implementation, focusing on solutions that work effectively in real-world, in-car environments.

• Willingness to work closely with product, engineering, and design teams to create integrated solutions that meet user needs and business goals.

• Self-starter who is communicative and outcomes-oriented

• A desire to work with individuals with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences

• High quality mindset -- write unit tests, proactively remedy defects and follow through to production

Nice to Have Traits for This Role

• Experience and knowledge within the navigation domain

• Experience with NLP (Natural Language Processing)

• Experience with Amazon RDS

• Experience with SQL

• Experience with various security standards and associated technical knowledge

What We Value

In addition to our core values, which are not unique to this position and are necessary for Mapbox leaders:

• We value the written form, and creative individuals who dig into problems and see them as opportunities

• We believe in individuals being their whole selves at work. We commit to this through supportive health care, parental leave, flexibility for the things that come up in life, and innovating on how we think about supporting our people.

• We emphasize an environment of teaching and learning to equip employees with the tools needed to be successful in their function and the company.

• We strongly believe in the value of growing a diverse team and encourage people of all backgrounds, genders, ethnicities, abilities, and sexual orientations to apply.

Our annual base compensation for this role ranges from $157,675 - $213,325 for most US locations and 5% to 10% higher for US locations with a higher cost of labor. Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience, potential impact, and scope of role), market demands, and specific work location. Please discuss your specific work location with your recruiter for more information.

By applying for this position, you acknowledge that you agree to the Mapbox Privacy Policy which is linked here.

Mapbox participates in E-Verify to confirm employee work authorization. Please refer to the Notice of E-Verify Participation and Right to Work posters for more information.

We are committed to a fair and equitable hiring process. We do not discriminate against any protected class.

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