Staff Software Engineer

Esper•Austin, TX

14d•Remote

About The Position

Esper is looking for an experienced Staff Software Engineer to join our team and take technical ownership of significant areas of our platform. This is a senior individual contributor role without direct reports. Because Esper's customers include state, local, and federal government agencies, the reliability, security, and compliance posture of our platform is central to the business. As a senior member of the engineering team, you'll make a direct impact through: Designing, building, and operating core services and product features end to end, from data model through API to the systems that run them in production Setting technical direction and roadmap for your areas in partnership with engineering leadership Participating fully in product development, working with product and design from an ambiguous problem statement through to a shipped feature Modeling the domain our customers work in — the entities, relationships, roles, and processes that make up a government agency and its work — and evolving that model as the product grows Providing technical mentorship and design review to other engineers

Requirements

8+ years of software engineering experience
Strong programming skills in a language such as Java, Python, Go, or Rust, and willingness to work primarily in Java
Experience owning services in production, including their data stores, deployment, and observability
Experience with distributed systems and asynchronous or long-running workflows
Experience with domain and data modeling, and the judgment to know when a model needs to change
Experience building production software on AWS or a comparable cloud provider
Familiarity with Docker and infrastructure as code such as Terraform
Genuine interest in the product, not just the systems underneath it
Strong communication skills — you will be working closely with all of engineering, as well as with product, design, auditors, and customer security teams
Ability to write clear, detailed technical documentation

Nice To Haves

Experience shipping LLM-backed or agentic features to production users
Hands-on experience with agent frameworks such as Strands Agents, the Vercel AI SDK, LangChain4j, Spring AI, LangGraph, Pydantic AI, or the OpenAI Agents SDK
Experience with workflow orchestration platforms such as Temporal, Cadence, or Step Functions
Experience with Amazon Bedrock or AgentCore, or with deploying agents into a managed runtime
Experience building evaluation, tracing, or quality monitoring tooling for LLM systems
Experience with ontology modeling or knowledge graphs
Experience with Kubernetes, GitOps pipelines, and cloud architecture best practices
Experience implementing technical controls for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or a comparable framework, including direct participation in audits
Experience taking a product through a FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorization
Experience at a govtech or other compliance-driven organization

Responsibilities

Designing, building, and operating core services and product features end to end, from data model through API to the systems that run them in production
Setting technical direction and roadmap for your areas in partnership with engineering leadership
Participating fully in product development, working with product and design from an ambiguous problem statement through to a shipped feature
Modeling the domain our customers work in — the entities, relationships, roles, and processes that make up a government agency and its work — and evolving that model as the product grows
Providing technical mentorship and design review to other engineers