Senior Staff Software Engineer, App Platform

Build the platform to help Flexport grow

The opportunity:

Flexport is building the first modern logistics platform to make global trade easier for everyone. We are solving complex problems on a global scale, and disrupting a multi-trillion dollar industry that has remained stubbornly unchanged.

Exceptional software development is integral in allowing us to fulfill our mission of fixing the user experience in global trade. At Flexport you'll develop products that are at the forefront of reshaping the entire logistics & supply chain industries. You'll work alongside self-starters interested in solving real-world problems and streamlining the inefficiencies in the complex global trade industry. You'll have the opportunity to reshape an industry by creating the new operating system for global trade.

App Platform is a cross-functional team that builds key abstractions used across Flexport products. We believe in empowering other maker teams by developing composable pieces that can be leveraged in their applications. Such composable pieces range from collaboration tools for communication and task management to config driven workflow systems to automate business processes. We also develop foundational infrastructure that enables teams to control access to resources and develop real-time experiences. We constantly evaluate new tools and technologies to help us solve problems of scale and complexity. In doing so, we also think hard about build vs buy tradeoffs to ensure that we are focused on novel problems in Flexport's areas of innovation. With these values in mind, we are looking for an experienced engineer to architect and drive complex cross-team technical projects on our roadmap while mentoring other engineers on the team.

You will:

• Architect collections of services and lead domain modeling efforts for the platform org. Since other services depend on us, we maintain a high bar for reliability, quality and maintainability.
• Drive cross-team projects in a functional area to completion. We work on multi-quarter projects that impact the entire engineering org. We often need to drive alignment among several teams and multiple stakeholders such as product, design, business, and compliance while working on such projects.
• Drive eng excellence initiatives and proactively redesign fragile systems. As we extract services out of the monolith, we take pride in untangling legacy code and re-building with composability in mind.
• Help EMs and PMs with planning and actively identify/resolve project risks that span technical and non-technical considerations. In addition to being responsible for execution, we encourage project DRIs to be thought partners on prioritization and roadmap generation.
• Help hire, onboard, and mentor engineers. We believe in developing a collaborative culture and optimizing our hiring, onboarding, and mentoring processes using a structured approach.
• Lead across the company in tools, standard operating procedures, and technologies used by the company. We look for opportunities to contribute to the organization beyond our assigned projects in the form of utilities that improve devex and introduction of new technologies that provide more effective ways of solving domain-specific problems.

What you'll build:

You will work on projects in the following areas:

• Collaboration - Facilitating communication between operations, clients, carrier, and partners. Products: messaging, inbox, notifications, action log.
• Work Management - Creating the framework to power the way work and tasks get done at Flexport. Products: task and work item queues.
• Documents - Building the platform for storage, ingestion, digitalization, and organization of trade documents. Products: storage and transcription services.
• Identity and Access Management - Building identity and authorization systems used across all services at Flexport. Product: authorization service.
• Workflow and Rules - Empowering developers and users to design, execute, and automate business rules and processes using config-driven systems. Products: workflow engine, rules engine.

You should have:

• Track record of building performant systems that deal with complexity or scale
• Experience planning and executing cross-team or cross-functional projects with a phased rollout approach
• Experience mentoring engineers and driving eng-excellence initiatives
• The ability to convey technical ideas in common terms to business partners, product managers, designers and engineers alike
• 8+ years of experience writing software, and a strong engineering background

Bonus:

• Proficient at least one programming language such as Java, Scala, or Ruby
• Experience with Rails, Spring, or React
• Expertise in Postgres or MongoDB
• Knowledge of GraphQL and gRPC
• Experience with AWS or Kubernetes
• Experience migrating large monolithic applications to service-oriented architecture

Our stack:

Our continuous releases are integrated with Buildkite and Github. On the frontend, we create our views with React, manage the flow of data with GraphQL/Relay, and test our application with Jest. On the backend, we're in the process of decoupling our monolithic Rails app. We have introduced a few network isolated services using other languages, such as Java, Scala, and Clojure. Our data is persisted in Postgres and MongoDB. Our stack is hosted on AWS using Docker, but we are currently migrating to Kubernetes.

Check out our Key Values profile.

About Flexport:

We believe global trade can move the human race forward. That's why it's our mission to make global trade easier for everyone. We aim to do this by building the Operating System for Global trade - a strategic model combining advanced technology and data analytics, logistics infrastructure, and supply chain expertise. Flexport today connects almost 10,000 clients and suppliers across 109 countries, including established global brands like Georgia-Pacific as well as emerging innovators like Sonos. Started in 2013, we've raised over $1.3B in funding from SoftBank Vision Fund, Founders Fund, GV, First Round Capital and Y Combinator. We're excited about the three big ways we're moving forward after our $1B investment from SoftBank Vision Fund in February 2019.

Worried about not having any freight forwarding experience?

• Don't be! We're building the first Operating System for Global Trade. That's why it's incredibly important for us to bring people from diverse backgrounds and experiences together with our industry veterans to help move the freight forwarding industry forward.
• What's freight forwarding and why does it matter? Freight forwarding is the coordination and shipment of goods from one place to another and it's what makes global trade possible. Flexport is on a mission to make global trade easier for everyone because we believe it can help connect the world and break down economic barriers.
• We know this industry is complex. That's why we invest in education starting day one with Flexport Academy, a one week intensive onboarding program designed specifically to set every new Flexport employee up for success.

At Flexport, our ability to fulfill our mission of making global trade easy for everyone relies on having a diverse, dedicated, and engaged workforce. That is why Flexport is committed to creating and nurturing an environment where anyone can be their authentic self. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of race, color, religion, sex, creed, national origin, age, physical and mental disability, health status, marital and family status, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law.