Lead Software Engineer

About BluJuniper

BluJuniper is an AI and optimization company building advanced software systems for complex operational environments. Our work spans cloud-native platforms, computer vision, natural language processing, data infrastructure, secure collaboration, and mission-focused AI/ML applications.

We are looking for a Lead Software Engineer to design, build, and scale the core backend services that power computer vision, audio, and natural language processing applications.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role for someone who can architect systems, write production-quality code, mentor engineers, and make strong technical decisions across distributed systems, data models, APIs, authentication, authorization, and real-time communications.

Compensation

$160,000–$225,000 per year

Compensation will be based on experience, location, and qualifications. BluJuniper offers competitive compensation and benefits. Employees may also be eligible for bonuses and stock options.

About the Role

As Lead Backend Engineer, you will own major backend architecture decisions and guide the implementation of reliable, secure, and scalable services.

You will work across microservices, data schemas, messaging systems, real-time media infrastructure, and access-control systems. You should be comfortable operating at both the systems-design level and the code-review level.

This role is ideal for an engineer with strong backend and systems experience who enjoys building clean infrastructure, designing durable data models, and leading engineers through complex technical work.

Go will be the primary implementation language for this role.

Responsibilities

• Lead the design and development of backend services using Go.
• Own backend services supporting real-time communications, including WebRTC and LiveKit.
• Design and implement event-driven services using Apache Kafka or comparable messaging technologies.
• Architect cloud-based, service-oriented systems that are reliable, observable, secure, and maintainable.
• Define service boundaries, API contracts, event flows, and integration patterns across distributed services.
• Develop and maintain data schemas, domain models, persistence strategies, and data-access patterns.
• Build backend infrastructure for authentication, authorization, role-based access control, and customer onboarding.
• Partner with computer vision, NLP, AI/ML, frontend, DevOps, and security teams to translate requirements into backend architecture.
• Break complex initiatives into executable technical plans and identify risks, dependencies, and tradeoffs.
• Guide projects from technical design through implementation, testing, deployment, and production operation.
• Review code and technical designs, mentor engineers, and establish engineering standards.
• Improve system performance, scalability, reliability, observability, and debuggability.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of professional backend or systems engineering experience.
• Strong proficiency in Go, C++, Java, Rust, or another similar language
• Production experience with Go or the ability to become productive in Go quickly.
• Experience designing and operating cloud-based systems on AWS, Azure, GCP, or a comparable cloud platform.
• Strong understanding of microservice architecture, service boundaries, API design, inter-service communication, and distributed-systems tradeoffs.
• Extensive experience with data modeling, schema design, relational or non-relational databases, and long-term data maintainability.
• Experience designing authentication and authorization systems, including role-based access control.
• Experience leading technical projects, reviewing designs, mentoring engineers, and guiding implementation across a team.
• Strong debugging and performance-analysis skills in production backend systems.
• Ability to communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with WebRTC, LiveKit, or other real-time media systems.
• Experience with Apache Kafka, event-driven architectures, message queues, or stream-processing systems.
• Experience building backend services that support AI/ML applications and collaborating with AI/ML engineering teams.
• Experience building backend systems for real-time collaboration.
• Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, and modern DevOps practices.
• Familiarity with secure software development, audit logging, secrets management, and least-privilege access design.
• Experience leading data-modeling efforts across large distributed systems.
• Experience working in regulated, government, defense, or enterprise-security environments.
• Experience with observability tooling, including structured logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting.

What Success Looks Like

Success in this role means turning complex technical requirements into practical, well-designed backend systems.

You can define clean service boundaries, create durable data models, make sound technical tradeoffs, and help engineers execute with clarity. You are comfortable being accountable for architecture while continuing to contribute directly to implementation.

You raise the quality of the engineering team around you, simplify complexity, and help the team move quickly without creating unnecessary technical debt.

Location

This is a hybrid role based in Washington, DC.

Candidates must be able to work from the Washington, DC area and regularly collaborate in person.

Employment Type

Full-time

Work Qualifications and Clearance Eligibility

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

An active U.S. government security clearance is not required for this role. Candidates who currently hold, have previously held, or may be eligible to obtain and maintain a U.S. government security clearance are preferred.

Certain customer, contract, or regulatory requirements may require additional eligibility verification.

Benefits

• Health, dental, and vision benefits.
• Flexible work environment.
• Opportunity to work on advanced computer vision, natural language processing, AI, optimization, and backend infrastructure problems.
• High-impact role with meaningful ownership over technical direction.
• Collaborative team environment with direct visibility into product and company strategy.
• Eligibility for bonuses and stock options.

Equal Opportunity Statement

BluJuniper is an equal opportunity employer. We consider qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable law.