Staff Software Engineer

Altana•Brooklyn, NY

11d•$175,000 - $230,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Altana is building an AI-powered product network for governments and businesses to support a more resilient and secure global economy while keeping trade flowing. The Engineering team builds a platform driven by AI, designed to scale across large amounts of data and serve a diverse customer base. Staff Engineers lead teams that build products customers adopt by grounding development in customer workflows, testing hypotheses, using AI as a core building block, and owning products end to end. In this role, you will work closely with product and design, speak with users, identify customer pain points, and lead a small team from product hypotheses through delivery and adoption. You will help decide what to build, take new product surfaces from concept to launch, and assess success through customer outcomes and meaningful telemetry. You will set a high technical bar, mentor engineers in customer-centered product development, and favor practical, iterative designs that get working products in front of customers quickly. The role is based in Brooklyn, New York, with hybrid work flexibility. Candidates must live within commuting distance of Altana’s Williamsburg office. The US salary range is $175,000–$230,000 per year. Competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full-time offers, and Altana offers either a discretionary bonus or a variable compensation plan depending on the role.

Requirements

Experience deploying production code and services to cloud-hosted environments.
Demonstrated experience delivering incremental releases from proof of concept through MVP to production.
Self-starter with demonstrated experience working on large, complex problems.
Strong commitment to engineering excellence, clean code, and knowledge-sharing.
Strong written and verbal communication skills.
Experience leading other engineers on complex projects.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Python machine-learning toolsets such as NumPy, Pandas, and Dedupe.
Experience with container technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes.
Familiarity with technologies used at Altana, including Python, PySpark, Docker, Git, Kubernetes, Swagger/OpenAPI, AWS/Azure, MLFlow, Celery, Databricks, and Delta Lakes.

Responsibilities

Spend time with customers, observe their workflows, identify points of difficulty, and translate those findings into product opportunities.
Partner with product teams to decide what to build and form evidence-based hypotheses about customer value.
Design small experiments to test product hypotheses and learn quickly; challenge briefs that are not grounded in evidence.
Take new product surfaces from concept through prototyping, launch, and adoption with real users.
Use AI-native approaches, including LLMs, agents, evaluations, and retrieval, where they are appropriate to the product.
Own end-to-end outcomes, from initial customer conversations through product telemetry, including architecture and instrumentation decisions.
Set technical standards by reviewing designs and code for quality, simplicity, and customer impact.
Mentor engineers in customer-centered, hypothesis-driven product development and help them learn to engage users and run experiments.
Lead other engineers on complex projects and drive technical decisions that favor practical, iterative delivery.
Deliver working products to customers quickly and evolve them based on what is learned.

Benefits

Flexible Time Off policy.
Paid parental leave: up to 14 weeks for non-birthing, adoptive, and foster parents and up to 26 weeks for birthing parents, paid at 100% of base salary.
Medical, vision, and dental benefits with employer contributions.
High-deductible health plan fully paid by the employer for employees, with an employer contribution to a Health Savings Account.
Flexible Spending Account option.
Life, short-term disability, long-term disability, and AD&D insurance coverage at no cost to employees.
Guideline 401(k) retirement savings program.
Commuter benefits for public transit or parking.
Free premium Calm subscription.
Pet insurance and access to a pet veterinary service and telehealth discount plan.
Employee Assistance Program with confidential personal support.
Dependent Care FSA for childcare expenses.
Competitive equity grants in the majority of full-time offers.
A discretionary bonus or variable compensation plan, depending on the role.