Staff Software Engineer, Developer Experience

Altana•New York, NY

3h•$170,000 - $220,000•Remote

About The Position

Altana is the network for trusted trade. Our AI-powered product network empowers governments and businesses to build a more resilient and secure global economy while keeping trade flowing. The Opportunity at Altana The Developer Experience team owns the infrastructure and tooling that our engineering organization uses every day: our monorepo, our CI/CD platform, and the day-to-day experience of working within our codebase. As a Staff Software Engineer on this team, you'll be responsible for ensuring developers have fast, reliable, and frictionless workflows—from the moment they clone the repo to when their code ships to production. Altana operates across a multi-cloud environment that's evolving rapidly, with deployments spanning commercial and government-compliant contexts. You'll design patterns and tooling that work consistently across these varied environments while maintaining the flexibility to move quickly. This role sits at the intersection of software engineering and infrastructure—you'll need to think like an application developer, reason about distributed systems, and understand cloud platforms deeply. You'll work closely with engineering teams across Altana to understand their pain points, identify opportunities for improvement, and build tooling that multiplies developer productivity. Success in this role means faster builds, tighter feedback loops, and engineers who can focus on solving problems rather than fighting their tools.

Requirements

5+ years of experience spanning software engineering and infrastructure, with a focus on developer tooling, platform engineering, or DevOps
Strong software engineering fundamentals—you can design well-architected systems, not just scripts and glue code
Deep experience with CI/CD systems (GitHub Actions, Buildkite, Jenkins, CircleCI, GitLab CI, or similar) and understanding of how to scale them
Proficiency in Golang and/or Python for automation and tooling development
Experience working with monorepo architectures and the challenges they present at scale
Production experience with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and understanding of cloud-native patterns
Familiarity with containerization (Docker) and container orchestration (Kubernetes)
Ability to design patterns that work consistently across multiple environments with varying constraints
Deep understanding of build systems, dependency management, and strategies for optimizing build performance
Developer empathy—you understand that fast feedback loops drive productivity and you're motivated by making other engineers more effective
Self-directed and independent, thriving in fast-moving environments with evolving requirements
Excellent problem-solving skills and comfort debugging complex systems across application and infrastructure layers
Strong written and verbal communication skills, comfortable working with technical teams to understand requirements and design solutions

Nice To Haves

Experience with Buildkite specifically
Familiarity with GitHub Enterprise Cloud administration and GitHub Apps
Experience with build caching strategies (remote caching, incremental builds)
Background in developer productivity metrics and measurement
Experience with containerized development environments or remote development solutions
Experience designing tooling that works across multiple cloud providers or isolated environments
Understanding of software supply chain security and secure CI/CD practices

Responsibilities

Optimize build performance and CI/CD pipeline efficiency, reducing build times and improving reliability
Design and implement improvements to pre-commit testing, PR status checks, and code review workflows in our monorepo
Architect and build internal tooling, CLIs, and automation that streamline common developer tasks—with attention to maintainability and extensibility
Design patterns and abstractions that work consistently across our multi-cloud environment, including deployments with heightened security requirements
Improve local development environments, ensuring engineers can iterate quickly with minimal friction
Instrument and monitor developer workflows to identify bottlenecks, then drive measurable improvements
Collaborate with engineering teams to understand their needs and translate them into platform capabilities
Document best practices, create onboarding materials, and support engineers in adopting new tools and workflows
Evaluate and integrate new technologies that improve developer productivity, build reliability, or operational efficiency
Contribute to the evolution of our monorepo strategy, including code organization, dependency management, and testing patterns

Benefits

Flexible Time Off: Altana operates with a Flexible Time Oﬀ (FTO) policy that gives you agency over your own time oﬀ so you can maximize your work-life balance.
Parental Leave: We oﬀer industry leading Paid Parental Leave (PPL), providing 14 weeks of leave for non-birthing, adoptive, and foster parents and up to 26 weeks of leave for birthing parents, all paid at 100% of your base salary.
Health Benefits: We have a full suite of medical, vision, and dental benefits with generous employer contributions, designed to give you flexibility and choice for your individual health situation. Our high deductible health plan is 100% employer paid for employees and supplemented with an employer contribution to your Health Savings Account (HSA). There is also a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) option.
Supplemental Benefits: Altana provides life, short- and long-term disability, and AD&D insurance coverage, all at no cost to you, so you know that you and your loved ones are covered in case of an emergency.
401(k) Savings: Save for and invest in your future using our Guideline 401(k) retirement savings program.
Commuter Benefits: Save money on your commute by setting aside pre-tax funds for public transit or parking!
Wellness: Because we value mental and emotional health, every Altana employee has access to a free premium subscription to Calm, the #1 app for meditation, sleep, and mindfulness.
Pet Insurance: Pets are family too! Keep them healthy with Wishbone insurance and / or our Total Pet vet service and telehealth discount plan.
Employee Assistance Program: Free access to confidential personal support.
Dependent Care FSA: You will have access to a Dependent Care FSA, which allows you to set aside pre-tax funds for childcare expenses