Senior Staff Software Engineer

Job Description

Job Description

Why This Role Matters
Senior Staff Software Engineers are the connective tissue across engineering at Bluestaq. You don't just own a system—you influence how multiple teams build their systems. The platform improvements you drive, the standards you establish, and the coaching you provide to Staff and Senior engineers produce compounding effects on delivery speed and quality across the organization. Your decisions directly affect the reliability, security, and scalability of the software Bluestaq's customers and mission partners depend on.  

Key Responsibilities

• Lead engineering efforts that span multiple teams or product areas, including major re-architectures, new platform capabilities, and cross-cutting reliability or security programs  
• Serve as a key technical partner for program leadership, product management, and cross-functional leads  
• Design and drive implementation of large-scale architectures: platform components, shared libraries, major system migrations, and cross-product integrations  
• Apply deep expertise across the full stack—backend, frontend, data, and infrastructure—to navigate complex performance, scalability, reliability, and security tradeoffs  
• Drive improvements in core engineering practices across multiple teams: testing strategy, observability, CI/CD pipelines, coding standards, and security posture  
• Identify and reduce unnecessary technical fragmentation by harmonizing patterns, tooling, and shared standards across engineering groups  
• Own cross-team technical outcomes with minimal direction, anticipating long-term risk and downstream impact before they become urgent  
• Coach Staff and Senior engineers to run their own domains effectively and grow into broader technical leaders  
• Represent engineering in high-level technical discussions about roadmap priorities, architectural tradeoffs, and organizational investment decisions  
• Lead multi-team initiatives from concept to rollout, aligning multiple engineering groups around shared goals and compatible designs  
• Recognize systemic weaknesses,test fragility, performance gaps, security posture, developer experience—and design programs to address them at scale  

Required Qualifications

• Exceptional proficiency across multiple software engineering domains: distributed systems, API design, data architecture, frontend or backend development, and platform engineering  
• Demonstrated ability to lead multi-team technical initiatives from concept through production at organizational scale, with measurable impact on reliability, performance, or engineering velocity  
• Deep expertise in large-scale system design, platform architecture, and cross-cutting technical strategy spanning multiple stacks and deployment environments  
• Strong track record of driving cross-team engineering improvements in testing, observability, CI/CD, security, or shared infrastructure  
• Proven ability to identify and resolve systemic technical risks and fragmentation across multiple codebases and teams  
• Demonstrated success coaching and developing Staff-level engineers into broader technical leaders  
• Excellent technical communication skills: ability to influence and align multiple engineering teams behind shared architectural decisions, patterns, and standards  
• Experience navigating cross-team organizational dynamics and delivering technical outcomes across reporting boundaries without formal authority  

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing or owning shared platforms, internal developer tooling, or cross-cutting infrastructure components used across multiple product teams  
• Background in large-scale system migrations, performance engineering programs, or multi-year reliability initiatives  
• Deep familiarity with DoD, intelligence community, or federal software delivery and security standards including RMF, NIST 800-53, or STIG compliance  
• Experience managing architectural technical debt at scale and driving simplification programs across large, complex codebases  
• History of developing Staff-level technical talent through direct coaching, structured mentorship, or technical leadership programs  
• Contributions to engineering strategy, hiring, or technical community beyond immediate team scope  
• External recognition as a technical leader: publications, conference presentations, open-source project ownership, or standards contributions  

Required Experience and Education:

• PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field and 6+ years of software engineering or related experience, OR  
• Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field and 8+ years of software engineering or related experience, OR  
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field and 10+ years of software engineering or related experience, OR  
• Associate degree in a related field and 12+ years of software engineering or related experience, OR  
• High School Diploma/GED and 14+ years of software engineering or related experience.  

Location Requirement
Colorado Springs, CO · Washington, DC · Dallas, TX · Salt Lake City, UT

• Colorado Springs is our HQ with an established office — 3–4 days on-site per week.
• DC, Dallas, and Salt Lake City-based roles will be remote until offices are established there, and then will require 3–4 days on-site.

You use modern AI tools with judgment: integrating them into workflows where they're impactful, reviewing their outputs, and handling proprietary or sensitive data responsibly.  

Salary Range (US)

$150,000—$210,000 USD

Clearance Requirement: This position may require an active TS/SCI Clearance. Current clearance holders are strongly encouraged to apply. If you don't currently hold one, Bluestaq will sponsor eligible candidates through the clearance process based on program needs.

Relocation: Relocation assistance is available for full-time positions.

About Bluestaq
At Bluestaq, we build secure data platforms that matter for space missions, national defense, healthcare systems, and commercial innovation. Founded in 2018, we've become a leader in enterprise software and secure data management by staying focused on what counts: modern architecture, operational excellence, and mission impact.

We're engineers, problem-solvers, and builders who take the mission seriously, but not ourselves. We automate the repeatable, question the status quo, and design systems that are as reliable as they are scalable. Whether we're supporting space, defense systems, or healthcare advancements, we build with the same principles: cloud-native solutions, security by design, and relentless simplicity.

What We Offer:
For full-time positions

• 100% employer-paid health, dental, and vision for you and your dependents
• Up to 6% match to 401(k) contributions with additional discretionary 4% profit share on day one. Roth options available; no vesting period.
• Every role is eligible for an annual performance bonus
• $200,000 employer-paid life insurance, plus short- and long-term disability coverage
• $5,000 annual professional development budget per employee
• 20 days PTO, plus 8 paid holidays
• Pet insurance, onsite gym, and flexible schedule

Bluestaq is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We prohibit unlawful discrimination against applicants or employees on the basis age 40 and over, color, disability, gender identity, genetic information, military or veteran status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or any other status protected by state or local law.

Bluestaq will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities and employees whose work requirements interfere with a religious belief unless doing so would result in an undue hardship to Bluestaq or a direct threat. Employees needing such accommodation are instructed to contact Human Resources immediately at View email address on ziprecruiter.com.