Staff Software Engineer, User Profile

Attentive; Wilmington (DE); On-site; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health & Wellness

Equity

Job summary

Attentive is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the User Profile data systems at scale. You will own architecture across core backend services and collaborate with product, data, and ML teams to deliver reliable, high-performance systems.

You’ll blend hands-on coding with technical leadership, mentor engineers, drive cross-team initiatives, and shape the future of how we process hundreds of billions of messages and events annually.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience in backend or distributed systems.
• Experience leading multi-team initiatives and architectural decisions.
• Strong skills in Java or similar backend languages and distributed systems.
• Excellent communication and mentorship abilities.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for high-scale user-profile data systems.
• Lead cross-team engineering initiatives across APIs, streaming, data processing.
• Design foundational platform capabilities for data source integrations and lifecycle management.
• Mentor engineers and uphold engineering standards while contributing hands-on work.

Skills

Distributed systems

Java

Leadership

Data processing

Backend architecture

Job description

Attentive® is the AI marketing platform for 1:1 personalization redefining the way brands and people connect. We’re the only marketing platform that combines powerful technology with human expertise to build authentic customer relationships. By unifying SMS, RCS, email, and push notifications, our AI-powered personalization engine delivers bespoke experiences that drive performance, revenue, and loyalty through real-time behavioral insights.

Recognized as the #1 provider in SMS Marketing by G2, Attentive partners with more than 8,000 customers across 70+ industries. Leading global brands like Crate and Barrel, Urban Outfitters, and Carter’s work with us to enable billions of interactions that power tens of billions in revenue for our customers.

With a distributed global workforce and employee hubs in New York City, San Francisco, London, and Sydney, Attentive’s team has been consistently recognized for its performance and culture. We’re proud to be included in Deloitte’s Fast 500 (four years running!), LinkedIn’s Top Startups, Forbes’ Cloud 100 (five years running!), Inc.’s Best Workplaces, and the Human Rights Campaign Foundation's Corporate Equality Index!

About the Role

Our Engineering team creates innovative product experiences that power personalized marketing at massive scale. We develop cutting-edge applications and systems that process hundreds of billions of messages and events per year, enabling marketers to connect effectively with hundreds of millions of consumers.

The User Profile team is the backbone of our data-driven personalization efforts, responsible for ingesting, processing, and serving millions of user data points daily. As a Staff Software Engineer on this team, you will provide technical leadership for the high-scale systems that serve as the single source of truth for user profiles and power core products, advanced segmentation, personalization, and machine learning capabilities.

You will combine deep hands-on engineering with broad technical leadership, owning architecture across critical data systems and partnering across engineering, product, data, and ML teams. You will tackle ambiguous and complex technical problems, establish architectural direction, and drive initiatives spanning multiple systems and teams from strategy through execution.

This is an opportunity to shape foundational infrastructure at the center of our company’s mission to make user data more actionable and valuable while multiplying your impact through the systems, technical direction, and engineers around you.

What You’ll Accomplish

• Set technical direction and architecture for high-scale systems and API’s responsible for the ingestion, processing, storage, and serving of user profiles and attributes.
• Lead complex, cross-team engineering initiatives across APIs, streaming infrastructure, data processing, and integrations, translating ambiguous product and business needs into scalable technical solutions.
• Design and evolve foundational platform capabilities that enable teams across the company to safely and efficiently build on user-profile data, including subscription lifecycle management and new data-source integrations.
• Drive architectural investments that improve the scalability, reliability, data quality, observability, performance, and maintainability of systems processing data at massive scale.
• Partner with product, data, and ML teams to shape how user attributes and large-scale data processing capabilities support segmentation, personalization, revenue attribution, behavioral analytics, and machine learning.
• Multiply the effectiveness of other engineers through technical mentorship, design reviews, architectural guidance, and engineering standards while remaining hands-on with foundational and technically challenging work.

Your Expertise

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant experience designing and operating backend or distributed systems at scale.
• A track record of technical leadership on complex, multi-team initiatives, taking ambiguous problems from definition through architecture, execution, and successful operation in production.
• Deep experience with high-scale data ingestion, processing, and streaming architectures, including systems handling large volumes of user, event, or similarly high-cardinality data.
• Strong programming and software-design skills in Java or similar backend languages, combined with strong distributed-systems fundamentals across scalability, reliability, performance, and observability.
• Demonstrated ability to make and communicate high-impact architectural decisions, identify systemic technical risks and opportunities, and balance immediate product needs with long-term platform health.
• Strong communication, influence, and mentorship skills, with a track record of aligning teams around technical strategy and raising the engineering bar without relying on formal authority.

You’ll get competitive perks and benefits, from health & wellness to equity, to help you bring your best self to work.

For US based applicants:

• The US base salary range for this full-time position is $180,000 - $230,000 annually+ equity + benefits
• Our salary ranges are determined by role, level and location

By applying for this position, your data will be processed as per Attentive's Privacy Policy.

Attentive Company Values

• Default to Action - Move swiftly and with purpose
• Be One Unstoppable Team - Rally as each other’s champions
• Champion the Customer - Our success is defined by our customers' success
• Act Like an Owner - Take responsibility for Attentive’s success

Learn more about AWAKE, Attentive’s collective of employee resource groups.

If you do not meet all the requirements listed here, we still encourage you to apply! No job description is perfect, and we may also have another opportunity that closely matches your skills and experience.

At Attentive, we know that our Company's strength lies in the diversity of our employees. Attentive is an Equal Opportunity Employer and we welcome applicants from all backgrounds. Our policy is to provide equal employment opportunities for all employees, applicants and covered individuals regardless of protected characteristics. We prioritize and maintain a fair, inclusive and equitable workplace free from discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. Attentive is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities. If you need any assistance or reasonable accommodations, please let your recruiter know.