Staff Software Engineer - Supernal

About this role

STAFF SOFTWARE ENGINEER

ABOUT SUPERNAL

Supernal helps small-to-medium businesses hire their first AI employee. Our AI teammates are built using intelligent, agentic workflows deployed on a proprietary platform. We deliver working, value-generating AI Employees—not tools—that handle real business processes alongside human teams.

THE ROLE

We're looking for a Staff/Principal Software Engineer to own and evolve the core platform that powers our AI employees. This is a technical leadership position responsible for the systems that enable our agents to scale reliably: the Django backend, distributed task infrastructure, event-driven architecture, Kubernetes deployments, and observability stack.

You'll work across the full system—from database query optimization to Helm chart tuning to designing new platform abstractions. You'll be a force multiplier for the engineering team, driving architectural decisions, eliminating scaling bottlenecks, and establishing patterns that make the platform more robust and developer-friendly.

This role reports to the Director of Engineering and involves significant autonomy in shaping technical direction.

WHAT YOU'LL OWN

- Drive platform architecture decisions and align the team on scalable patterns and long-term maintainability

- Review a high volume of code, design docs, and architectural proposals for scalability, reliability, security, and operability

- Be a technical mentor and force multiplier: unblock engineers, raise the bar on production readiness, and establish platform best practices

- Own and evolve the core backend platform (Django/DRF/ASGI) performance and correctness

- Scale async execution across Celery + Dramatiq + Temporal/Cortex; implement resilient workflow patterns (retries, circuit breakers, graceful degradation)

- Optimize PostgreSQL/pgvector (query tuning, connection pooling) and caching strategies

- Maintain and improve Kubernetes deployment infrastructure (GKE, Helm, Terraform/OpenTofu) and CI/CD + rollout strategies. Own KEDA autoscaling policies and resource allocation across worker pools.

- Own reliability of RabbitMQ, Redis, and PostgreSQL infrastructure; lead incident response and post-mortems

- Extend OpenTelemetry + Datadog instrumentation, dashboards, alerts, and SLOs; profile and reduce latency/memory bottlenecks

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

REQUIRED

- 10+ years building and operating production backend systems at scale

- Deep expertise in Python (Django preferred) and relational databases (PostgreSQL)

- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Helm, and cloud infrastructure (GCP preferred)

- Strong background in distributed systems: message queues, event sourcing, workflow orchestration

- Production experience with async task systems (Celery, Dramatiq, or similar)

- Track record of debugging complex production issues across multiple services

- Ability to work autonomously and drive technical initiatives without close supervision

- Clear technical communication—able to explain tradeoffs and build consensus

PREFERRED

- Experience with Temporal or similar workflow engines

- Background in LLM infrastructure, RAG systems, or AI/ML platforms

- Familiarity with OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or similar observability stacks

- Experience with KEDA or other Kubernetes autoscaling solutions

- Contributions to multi-tenant SaaS platform architecture

- History of improving developer experience and platform abstractions

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

- Platform services maintain high availability with predictable performance under load

- Scaling bottlenecks are identified and resolved proactively

- New features ship faster because platform primitives are well-designed and documented

- Incidents are rare, quickly detected, and thoroughly addressed

- Engineers across the team adopt platform patterns and best practices

- Technical debt is systematically identified and paid down

- You're a trusted technical voice in architectural discussions

COMPENSATION & LOGISTICS

- Compensation: Competitive salary commensurate with experience (Staff/Principal level)

- Location: Remote

- Type: Full-time

- Requirements: Overlap with Americas timezones for collaboration; reliable high-speed internet

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