Software Development Engineer II, Maps API

About the role

Mapbox defines the standard for location-aware enterprises worldwide. Our technology enables organizations to build navigation solutions for pedestrians, freight, and autonomous systems across every continent. Over four million developers select Mapbox for its robust security frameworks and adherence to global privacy standards. Teams use our SDKs and APIs to craft bespoke spatial experiences that exceed user expectations. The Maps API division is responsible for the end-to-end lifecycle of our cartographic products, including the ingestion, processing, and delivery of map content to a global audience. We manage critical infrastructure that handles immense request volumes while maintaining sub-second latency to power the highest-traffic read APIs in our ecosystem. Our work directly empowers designers and analysts to visualize spatial data in innovative ways, and we are actively researching next-generation methods for spatial data visualization. Explore the latest maps at https://www.mapbox.com/maps.

Key facts

What you'll do

Lead scoping sessions to define well-structured engineering tasks and translate ambiguous requirements into concrete technical specifications.

Own project delivery from initial development through production deployment, ensuring alignment with product objectives and operational standards.

Design architecture capable of supporting our expanding user base while balancing innovation delivery with system stability.

Deploy containerized services and diagnose anomalies caused by regional traffic spikes to maintain consistent performance globally.

Enable reliable software release cycles by implementing robust testing strategies and validation workflows for map data pipelines.

Reduce complexity in legacy systems while improving application throughput and maintaining the integrity of global datasets.

Foster an inclusive environment that encourages knowledge sharing and cross-functional collaboration with product and design teams.

Promote operational rigor through monitoring, testing, and incident response to ensure high availability of critical APIs.

Utilize artificial intelligence as an aid in design, development, and validation tasks to enhance productivity and solution quality.

Write resilient code for global datasets, ensuring solutions perform efficiently under diverse linguistic scripts and regional typographic conventions.

Support diverse linguistic scripts and accommodate regional typographic conventions to deliver a consistent user experience.

Handle edge cases in global boundary representation automatically to ensure accuracy in digital representations of the planet.

Coordinate with internal departments and external partners who rely on distributed data pipelines for map features and analytics.

Investigate and implement next-generation methods for spatial data visualization to advance how users interact with location data.

Requirements

Candidates must possess extensive experience with high-throughput backend infrastructure and demonstrate proficiency in Python and TypeScript.

You should have a deep understanding of distributed computing patterns and expertise in AWS infrastructure for deploying scalable services.

Applicants must utilize artificial intelligence as an aid while ensuring code quality and architectural soundness throughout the development lifecycle.

You must have a proven track record of optimizing data-intensive systems and managing the full development lifecycle with minimal supervision.

Written and verbal communication skills are essential for documenting decisions, sharing hypotheses, and conveying conclusions clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Employment eligibility verification is conducted upon hiring, and all hires must comply with Mapbox policies and legal requirements.

This role is based in the United States, and candidates must be eligible to work in this location without sponsorship for this position.

Roles can be filled prior to the closing date, and successful candidates must adhere to standard working hours and occasional travel requirements.

Nice to have

Experience with geospatial data models is advantageous for understanding map content structures and data relationships.

Familiarity with global image compositing or elevation datasets provides additional context for handling complex spatial problems.

Practical notes

This position is based in the United States and follows standard working hours.

Some travel may be required for project alignment and internal collaboration.

Employment eligibility verification is conducted upon hiring to ensure compliance with employment laws.

Roles can be filled prior to the closing date, so early application is encouraged to secure consideration.

Technology Stack

Maps API, Python, TypeScript, Spark, Apache Ray, Iceberg, DuckDB, Parquet, Arrow, AWS CDK, ECS, Step Functions, Lambda, S3, RDS, CloudWatch, CloudFront