Staff Software Engineer

DAT Freight & Analytics; Seattle (WA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, and AD&

Parental Leave

Flexible Vacation Time

10 holidays per year

401k matching

Employee Stock Purchase Plan

Transit benefit

Job summary

DAT Freight & Analytics is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the developer experience for a new Integrations function. You will design and ship SDKs, OpenAPI specs, and tooling that connect DAT APIs to third-party partners, brokers, shippers, and carriers.

The role emphasizes producing usable, production-ready integrations and guiding cross-team collaboration. You will mentor engineers, build proofs of concept, and help shape governance for external APIs while delivering customer value

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of software development, with backend and full-stack focus in TypeScript/Node.js.
• Proven API design and documentation for external developers or partners.
• Experience shipping production-ready integrations across teams.

Responsibilities

• Build proofs of concept for developer experience and platform capabilities.
• Design, build, and maintain SDKs and developer tooling in TypeScript.
• Create OpenAPI specs and examples that work with AI coding assistants.
• Design API logging and monitoring for production integrations.
• Mentor engineers and participate in design and code reviews.
• Translate business needs into technical specifications.

Skills

TypeScript

Node.js

REST API design

OpenAPI/specifications

SDKs / Client libraries

Cloud-native (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Docker / Kubernetes

Observability / logging

Agile / Scrum

AI-assisted development

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience

Tools

OpenAPI

SDK development

Job description

About DAT

DAT Freight & Analytics is an award-winning employer of choice and a next-generation SaaS technology company that has been at the leading edge of freight and logistics innovation for nearly five decades. Founded in 1978, DAT operates the largest freight marketplace in North America — processing 250 million+ load posts annually and maintaining one of the largest repositories of freight market transaction data in the world. On a defined path to $1 billion in revenue, DAT deploys a suite of software solutions, machine learning models, and intelligent automation tools that help brokers, carriers, and shippers price freight accurately, source capacity, reduce risk, and operate more efficiently. With nearly 700 teammates across offices in Denver, CO; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Springfield, MO; Toronto, ON; and Bangalore, India, DAT combines the credibility of a multi-decade market leader with the drive of a company that is not done disrupting the industry it helped build. For more information, visit www.DAT.com

DAT Freight & Analytics is an award-winning employer of choice and a next-generation SaaS technology company that has been at the leading edge of freight and logistics innovation for nearly five decades. Founded in 1978, DAT operates the largest freight marketplace in North America — processing 250 million+ load posts annually and maintaining one of the largest repositories of freight market transaction data in the world. On a defined path to $1 billion in revenue, DAT deploys a suite of software solutions, machine learning models, and intelligent automation tools that help brokers, carriers, and shippers price freight accurately, source capacity, reduce risk, and operate more efficiently. With nearly 700 teammates across offices in Denver, CO; Portland, OR; Seattle, WA; Springfield, MO; Toronto, ON; and Bangalore, India, DAT combines the credibility of a multi-decade market leader with the drive of a company that is not done disrupting the industry it helped build. For more information, visit www.DAT.com

Job Application Deadline

10/31/2026

The Opportunity

DAT Solutions is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to be the first engineer in a new function within our Integrations organization: platform and developer experience for third-party integrators. Our integrations teams connect DAT to the systems brokers, shippers, and carriers run their businesses on, from TMS platforms to partner APIs. Today, no one owns the experience of building on DAT from the outside: the SDKs, documentation, observability, and tooling integrators depend on. You will. You will report to the Engineering Manager of Integrations, work alongside our inbound and outbound integration teams, and partner closely with Product, Customer Support, and Engineering across the organization. The function starts small, and its size and shape will grow with the impact you demonstrate.

Candidate profile

You are a Staff Engineer who builds. Hand you a problem no one at DAT has solved yet and you stand up a proof of concept in days, put it in front of real users, and let what you learn decide what happens next. You are pragmatic: you would rather deliver customer value in weeks than polish something no one asked for. You are comfortable with ambiguity and limited direction, and you do your best work partnering across teams to turn a promising idea into something that ships. You understand your customers, including the brokers and integrators who increasingly build with AI coding assistants, and you design for how they actually work.

Key Measures for Success

• Working proofs of concept delivered early, with the ones that prove out taken to production
• Third-party integrators, including those building with AI coding assistants, can build, test, and troubleshoot against DAT APIs without engineering hand-holding
• Documentation, API specifications, and examples that consistently produce good results when integrators use AI tools
• One or more SDKs that reduce the effort for partners to integrate with DAT
• Production-grade API logging and monitoring that gives Product, Engineering, and Customer Support a shared, trustworthy view of integration health
• Light, practical guidelines applied to our customer-facing APIs, starting with new integration surfaces such as shipment ingest
• Effective knowledge-sharing and mentorship across engineering teams

What You’ll Do

• Build proofs of concept for developer experience and platform capabilities that have not been solved at DAT before, and take the ones that prove out to production
• Execute against our established architectures, refining them where they need it, and partner across Integrations, Product, Support, and Engineering to drive impact
• Design, build, and maintain SDKs and developer tooling in TypeScript, treating integrators as customers
• Build documentation, OpenAPI specifications, and examples that work well when integrators use AI coding assistants, and learn how our customers actually use AI so you can make them successful
• Design and build API logging and monitoring that gives teams visibility into how integrations behave in production
• Help shape lightweight governance for our customer-facing APIs (consistency, versioning, authentication, error handling, and deprecation), applied through an abstraction layer between our internal services and integrators
• Anticipate and communicate roadblocks before they require escalation, and align stakeholders across teams on shared direction
• Reduce toil and improve the reliability, cost, and performance of our integration services
• Use AI-assisted development in your own work and share what works with your teammates
• Write unit, integration, and functional tests, and guide others in doing the same
• Participate in design and code reviews; write and maintain technical documentation
• Review functional requirements, analyze their impact on schedule and software design, and translate business needs into technical specifications
• Mentor engineers on and beyond your team
• Stay current on industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in API platforms and developer experience

Required Education And Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• 8+ years of experience in software development, with deep backend and full-stack experience in TypeScript and Node.js
• Demonstrated experience designing and operating APIs consumed by external developers or partners
• A track record of taking ideas from prototype to production
• Demonstrated history of leading complex, multi-team technical initiatives

The Skills And Experience You’ll Bring

• Expertise in REST API design and the surrounding practices: OpenAPI specifications, versioning, authentication and authorization, and backward compatibility
• Experience building and maintaining SDKs or client libraries (strongly preferred)
• Hands-on experience with AI-assisted development, and an understanding of how less technical integrators use AI tools to build against APIs (a plus)
• Experience with microservices, containers (Docker/Kubernetes), and cloud-native infrastructure on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud
• Experience with logging, monitoring, and observability for distributed systems
• Knowledge of enterprise integration patterns, including event-driven, EDI, and webhook-based integrations (a plus)
• Familiarity with freight, logistics, or TMS ecosystems (a plus)
• Practical experience with design principles and patterns, and strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Experience with Scrum/Agile SDLC and CI/CD
• Outstanding interpersonal and written communication skills; adept at working with professionals from a wide range of disciplines

Why DAT?

DAT is an award winning employer of choice.

For starters, we have a hybrid work environment, but we also know what makes a great workplace. We have a time-tested and resolute set of operating values predicated on integrity, mutual respect, open communication, and executing with excellence. These values inform our strategic vision as much as any one of our products does. We’ve been an employer of choice in the Portland metropolitan area for four decades, and within one year of opening our Denver office, DAT was #26 on Built In Colorado’s 100 Best Places to Work In Colorado.

• Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, and AD&D insurance
• Parental Leave
• Flexible Vacation Time (FVT)
• An additional 10 holidays of paid time off per calendar year
• 401k matching (immediately vested)
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan
• Short- and Long-term disability sick leave
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Health Savings Accounts
• Employee Assistance Program
• Additional programs - Employee Referral, Internal Recognition, and Wellness
• Free TriMet transit pass (Beaverton Office)
• Competitive salary and benefits package
• Work on impactful projects in a cutting-edge environment
• Collaborative and supportive team culture
• Opportunity to make a real difference in the trucking industry
• Employee Resource Groups

For Colorado-based candidates, in compliance with the Colorado Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, the salary range for this role is $183,000.00 - $228,000.00 + target bonus. DAT considers factors such as scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, education and training, core skills, internal equity, and market and business elements when extending an offer.

DAT embraces the value of a diverse workforce, and believes it is a core strength of our company that we encourage those values in every DAT employee, at every level of our organization, regardless of tenure or rank. We provide equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, disability, genetic information, marital status, amnesty, or status as a covered veteran in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals With Disabilities

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information.