Senior Software Engineer

About the Company

We are a renewable energy and ocean technology company committed to rapidly developing and deploying technologies that will ensure a sustainable future for Earth by unlocking the vast energy potential of its oceans. Our focus is on capturing civilizational levels of ultra-low-cost renewable energy for applications including computing and affordable renewable fuels delivered to shore.

The company is a public benefit corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and backed by leading venture capitalists, philanthropic investors, university endowments, and private investment offices. We operate as an idea meritocracy in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis.

About the Job

Our core technology is the node, a device that produces energy in the ocean’s harshest conditions for years at a time without human maintenance or intervention.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will contribute to the design, development, and optimization of high-performance telemetry and command systems that drive cutting-edge marine autonomy solutions. This role combines technical expertise with strategic thinking, requiring you to help build scalable APIs and data storage systems, rapidly iterate on operational UIs, and integrate with diverse external systems. Your work will directly impact operational efficiency, innovation, and the delivery of state-of-the-art maritime technologies. This team’s responsibilities include both the backend (Elixir) and frontend (Phoenix LiveView) of shore systems.

Candidates should have strong interpersonal skills and be able to thrive in a creative, scrappy, and collaborative environment in which the best ideas change the company’s direction on a regular basis. If you are an excellent engineer, regardless of your background, we want you to apply.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate on and own aspects of our telemetry ingest, data visualization, and marine operations platforms. Examples currently underway include:
  • Telemetry ingest pipelines and associated APIs
  • Command and control APIs
  • Operational and analytical user interfaces
  • Interfacing with external systems, both homegrown and commercial for tasks relating to:
    • Weather conditions, current and predictions
    • Marine traffic
    • Operational simulations
    • Satellite imagery
    • Manufacturing systems
• Analyze, predict and account for a broad spectrum of failure states, including environments with constrained or unpredictable network conditions.
• Gather requirements from users with a diverse set of highly technical and domain-specific needs
• Participate in our collective management and maintenance of the team’s compute infrastructure
• Willingness to consult existing research that may apply to the novel problems in our domain
• Collaborate effectively with coworkers from a variety of backgrounds (electrical and mechanical engineering, embedded systems, manufacturing, maritime operations, and more)

Required Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience writing software
• 2-3+ years of experience developing fault tolerant applications in Elixir or Erlang
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills
• Proficiency with version control (we use git)
• Competency with CI/CD pipelines for automated tests and deployment
• Ability to work in a fast-paced, self-starting, and demanding atmosphere
• Ability to communicate thoughtfully and empathetically with people from many different educational and professional backgrounds
• Desire and skills to work fully remote
• Motivation and curiosity to learn a wide variety of concepts across many disciplines, not just software engineering!

Bonus Qualifications:

• Prior distributed systems experience
• Prior experience with Phoenix Live View
• Experience in UI/UX design

The bonus qualifications are nice to know about, but by no means required. We encourage you to apply if you are a strong candidate with only some of the experience listed.

Additional Requirements:

• Travel for periodic (we strive for quarterly) onsites and potentially test sites as needed
• We expect this role to join the team’s future on-call rotation

Compensation and Benefits:

If hired for this full-time role, you will receive:

• Cash compensation of $175,000–$230,000.
• Equity in the company. We’re all owners and if we’re successful, this equity should be far and away the most valuable component of your compensation.
• A benefits package that helps you take care of yourself and your family, including:
  • Flexible paid time off
  • Health insurance (the company pays 100% of gold level PPO plan for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Dental insurance (the company pays 33% for full time employees and 100% for their partners and dependents)
  • Vision insurance (the company pays 100% for full time employees, their partners, and dependents)
  • Disability insurance (the company pays 100% for a policy to provide long term financial support if you become disabled)
  • Ability to contribute to tax-advantaged accounts, including 401(k), health FSA, and dependent care FSA
• Relocation assistance to facilitate your move to Portland (if needed).

Location:

This can be a remote position. Our offices, lab, and shop are located in Portland, Oregon.