Software Development Engineer III, Search API (Places)

Mapbox; Washington (District of Columbia); Remote; USD 194,650 - 263,350; Full time

Job summary

Mapbox, a leading real-time location platform, seeks a Staff Software Engineer for the Search Box team. You will design, develop, and operate major areas of our Search services, including the new Places API product.

You will mentor engineers, drive architectural decisions, and collaborate with product and data teams to align with customer needs and market trends, including direct interactions with automotive and mapping partners.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in engineering web services in Rust or Typescript (Node.js).
• Experience building highly-available API services in container-based environments (Docker, ECS, Kubernetes, AWS).
• Proficiency in monitoring instrumentation, incident triage, and product improvement.
• Knowledge of OS and distributed systems (fault tolerance, consistency, service discovery).
• Ability to design long-term technical strategies balancing delivery and tech debt.
• Experience driving high-visibility engineering initiatives across teams.
• Interest in solving geo-spatial problems.
• Strong analytical thinking with data-driven decisions.
• Excellent communication across engineering, product, and data teams.

Responsibilities

• Architect and advance robust services to optimize API performance and deployment durability.
• Champion engineering excellence with code quality standards and workflows.
• Guide long-term technical architecture and scalability discussions.
• Mentor and empower the engineering team toward continuous growth.
• Drive design and development of service quality metrics and analytics.
• Run experiments to evaluate quality, reliability, and capacity of navigation products.
• Participate in end-to-end feature implementation, code reviews, and on-call rotation.
• Collaborate with business teams to align roadmap with customer needs and market trends.

Skills

7+ years experience

Rust

Typescript

API services

Monitoring/telemetry

Distributed systems

Architectural strategy

Geo-spatial interest

Cross-functional collaboration

Tools

Docker

ECS

Kubernetes

AWS

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 Search Box team is responsible for building our premium geospatial search engine, seamlessly combining robust address geocoding with comprehensive Point of Interest (POI) retrieval for logistics, travel, automotive, and AI lab platforms. We do this by engineering sophisticated public APIs, continuously optimizing ranking algorithms, and scaling massive global datasets into high-performance search indexes. Additionally, we develop an advanced federation layer that dynamically integrates specialized third‑party services, such as live parking and EV charging data. Our work acts as the critical foundation for holistic navigation systems, ensuring end-users receive reliable, precise, and highly relevant location data wherever their journeys take them.

As AI becomes embedded in modern engineering workflows, we value engineers who can thoughtfully integrate AI into design, development, and decision‑making. Our interview process will include discussion of how you use AI in your engineering workflow.

What You'll Do

Joining us as a Staff Software Engineer on the Search Box team, you will play a critical role in designing, developing, and operating significant areas of our Search services, including our new Places API product.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Architect and advance robust services that optimize API performance, emphasizing excellence in deployment, system durability, and telemetry.

• Champion engineering excellence by instituting rigorous code quality standards and refining development workflows across the organization.

• Drive strategic decisions regarding our long—term technical architecture and scalability, participating in high‑level architectural discourse.

• Serve as a mentor and technical authority for the engineering team, cultivating a culture of continuous learning and professional growth.

• Drive design and development of services quality metrics and analytics.

• Run and design experiments to evaluate the quality, reliability, and capacity requirements of our user‑facing navigation products.

• Participate in end‑to‑end feature implementation within the Search Org; review code and design documents, shepherd feature releases, and participate in an on‑call rotation.

• Collaborate with business development teams to ensure that the product roadmap and design align with customer needs and market trends..

• Engage in direct communication with trend‑setting customers, automotive OEMs in EU, US, Japan, and China, as well as suppliers like automotive Tier 1 companies and Mapping firms.

What We Believe are Important Traits for This Role

• 7+ years of experience in engineering web services in either Rust or Typescript (Node.js).

• Experience building highly‑available API services within container‑based environments (e.g., Docker, ECS, Kubernetes, etc. on AWS).

• Proficiency in implementing monitoring instrumentation, triaging incidents, resolving customer issues, and continuous product improvement.

• Knowledge of operating systems and distributed systems (e.g., fault‑tolerance, consistency, service discovery, etc.).

• Proven ability to design long‑term technical strategies that balance immediate product delivery with the reduction of systemic technical debt across multiple departments.

• Extensive experience driving high‑visibility initiatives that improve engineering standards and operational excellence for the cross‑functional teams.

• Experience or interest in solving geo‑spatial problems.

• Strong analytical thinking and the ability to justify technical decisions using system telemetry and data.

• Meticulous attention to detail and a creative, resourceful approach to problem‑solving.

• Excellent communication skills, with a proven ability to collaborate effectively across cross‑functional engineering, product, and data teams.

Nice to Have Traits for This Role

• Prior experience in the mapping, navigation, or automotive industry.

• Knowledge of machine learning techniques for geospatial data analysis.

• Contributions to open‑source geospatial or data analysis projects.

What We Value

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

• We value high‑performing creative individuals who dig into problems and 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 $194,650 - $263,350 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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