Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer

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 Engineering team is responsible for building out the platforms, API's, services, workflows, and logical architectures for bringing this vision to life. We are creating a platform fundamentally driven by AI, which scales to a massive trove of data, and a diverse customer base; it is a complex system that will stretch engineering in many directions. You'll work closely with our Data Scientists on projects to analyze and observe world-scale datasets, write code that can scale to produce never-before-seen insights, and construct APIs to deliver our product vision.

You Will

• Ingest product requirements, define technical requirements, and design practical, iterative technology designs that achieve our product and technical goals.
• Work with your product manager to develop implementation plans against our technical product roadmaps.
• Personally maintain, develop, and deploy services creating and supporting our overall architecture.
• Analyze and propose technical solutions to invent, enable, and enhance our product offerings.
• Be responsible for automating, testing, and deploying your own and your team's work.
• Review the code and technical designs authored by your team members while holding a high bar for quality.
• Mentor developers and help them level up their skills.
• Be responsible for the day-to-day work of a team of engineers and ensure that the team is progressing along the defined roadmap.
• Drive technical decision-making and problem-solving across the team, ensuring solutions are efficient, scalable, and maintainable.
• Serve as the first point of escalation for a portion of the product surface area

You Have

• BS or MS degree in Computer Science, or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of real-world professional experience writing back end or data-driven software in demanding environments.
• You've deployed production code and services to cloud-hosted environments.
• You have demonstrated experience delivering incremental releases from proof-of-concept to MVP to production.
• Self-starter with demonstrated experience working on large, complex problems.
• You care deeply about engineering excellence, clean code, and knowledge-sharing.
• You have strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience leading other engineers on complex projects.

Nice to have, but not required

• Experience with Python Machine Learning toolsets (Numpy, Pandas, Dedupe).
• Experience with container technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.

Technologies we love to use at Altana

• Languages: Python, PySpark
• Tools: Docker, Git, Kubernetes, Swagger/OpenAPI, AWS/Azure, MLFlow, Celery
• Datastores: Databricks and Delta Lakes

This role can be based in either of our Altana New York or San Francisco, CA hub locations, with hybrid work flexibility.

US Salary Range and Benefits

$190,000- $245,000 USD

The salary range, to the extent specified for this role, is a good faith statement of the minimum and maximum levels of the annual based salary for the position. The base salary offered to a successful candidate will depend on a wide range of compensation factors, including, but not limited to, work experience, education and/or training, critical skills, and/or business considerations. Competitive equity grants are included in the majority of full time offers; and are considered part of Altana's total compensation package. Altana also offers either a discretionary bonus or a variable compensation plan depending on the role. Additionally, Altana offers top-tier benefits for full-time employees, including:

• 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

The recruiter assigned to this role can share more information about the specific compensation and benefit details associated with this role during the hiring process.

Our Values

Our values are the core beliefs that shape who we are, what we stand for, and how we behave.They form the foundation of Altana's culture and integrity and guide how we hire, design, build, and connect with each other and our customers.

• Trust: Our customers and partners entrust us with missions of the highest importance. We honor that by keeping our word, meeting commitments, and ensuring every action we take reinforces confidence in us. We rely on each other to deliver, to speak openly, and to hold ourselves accountable.
• Resilience: In a world of uncertainty and complexity, our work must withstand challenges, evolve with conditions, and ensure reliability over time. Resilience is both how we operate and what we deliver. It's how we respond when things don't go to plan –– we adapt, we support each other, and we keep moving forward.
• Stewardship: We are stewards of every mission we touch. Because our work impacts lives and futures, we hold ourselves accountable to delivering mission impact and never compromising. Our responsibility extends beyond individual projects to the broader system of global trade. We believe that stewardship starts from within so that we can bring focus, creativity, and excellence to our work. Each of us is personally responsible for fostering a workplace where people can thrive. And we are stewards of the greater good of the company. By holding ourselves and each other accountable, we build a culture of innovation and collective success that reflects the scale of our mission.
• Courage: Courage is what unlocks the seemingly impossible for our customers. It's the core value that drives us make bold moves and take on big, complicated network problems—the ones others avoid. We know success isn't guaranteed, but we have the audacious vision to believe a solution is possible and to build it. Courage fuels our growth mindset. It means embracing challenges that make us stronger, and it's demonstrated by how we approach hard conversations and complex projects.

At Altana, we believe that a diverse workforce enables greater creativity, performance, and adaptability. We're proud to be an equal opportunity employer and welcome you to join us as you are. Our employment opportunities and decisions are based on business needs and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, family care or medical leave status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by the laws or regulations