Staff Engineer

About the role

At Plume, we believe that technology isn't about moving faster, it's about making life's moments better. Which is why we've built the world's first, and only, open and hardware-independent service delivery platform for smart homes, small businesses, enterprises, and beyond. Our SaaS platform uses WiFi, advanced AI, and machine learning to create the future of connected spaces - and human experiences - at massive scale. We now deliver services to over 60 million locations globally and have managed over 3 billion devices on our platform. We're expanding rapidly, pioneering a new category, and we achieved our Series F funding in just four years. Our customers include many of the world's largest Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who look to Plume to help them evolve their smart home offerings while gleaning insights from their own data. With a bias for action and a love for being trailblazers, the team at Plume embodies a combination of relentless curiosity and imaginative innovation. We challenge ourselves to think in ways that other companies don't, work to do what should be done (rather than what can), and if we cannot do it exceptionally well, we do not do it. It is how we have assembled a team of world-class builders, thinkers, and doers. And it is how we are reinventing what is possible every day.

As a Staff Engineer within the Connectivity Services team in Product Engineering, you will own the architecture and delivery of the core systems that enable seamless connectivity for millions of homes and businesses. You will be responsible for designing and implementing the backend services that ingest, process, and analyze network and device telemetry at global scale. This role demands deep expertise in distributed systems and cloud architecture to ensure that our platform remains reliable, performant, and secure under real-world conditions. You will partner closely with product and data teams to translate business requirements into robust technical solutions that drive customer outcomes. You will also play a key role in mentoring engineers and elevating the technical standards across the organization.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Architect and build large-scale cloud-distributed systems, including microservices, streaming and batch data pipelines, and databases, operating at scale across tens of millions of locations rather than in small-scale environments.
• Design, implement, and maintain RESTful and gRPC APIs that power both internal services and external customer-facing applications with high availability and low latency.
• Architect and deploy scalable microservices on AWS and GCP using Kubernetes and modern DevOps practices to support rapid growth and operational efficiency.
• Build and maintain real-time and offline data pipelines, ensuring data accuracy, performance, and observability while integrating machine learning pipelines to produce actionable insights for algorithms and agentic software.
• Support and maintain the existing production stack while actively contributing to the design and evolution of the new cloud architecture to meet future demands.
• Technically lead complex projects and mentor a team of engineers, providing guidance on architecture decisions and implementation best practices.
• Partner with cross-functional squad members and peer staff or senior engineers to deliver features end-to-end, from initial concept through design, implementation, and production deployment.
• Optimize services for scalability, resilience, and high availability, applying rigorous testing and monitoring to meet stringent operational standards.
• Contribute to architecture discussions and enforce coding standards to drive best practices in continuous integration, continuous delivery, testing, and system monitoring.
• Embed security and compliance requirements into backend systems and data workflows to ensure that customer data is handled safely and responsibly.

Requirements

• Bring 5 to 8 years of professional software engineering experience, demonstrating a proven track record of delivering complex systems.
• Hold a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or possess equivalent practical experience.
• Show deep experience in designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems that handle high concurrency and demanding workloads.
• Demonstrate strong proficiency in backend development using modern programming languages such as Golang, Java, or Python, with a solid understanding of software design patterns.
• Exhibit expertise with containerization and orchestration technologies, particularly Kubernetes, and experience deploying and managing services on major cloud platforms like AWS and GCP.
• Possess strong knowledge of data pipelines, databases, and caching strategies to support both real-time streaming and batch processing needs.
• Display a solid understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, and HTTP protocols, as they relate to distributed applications.
• Demonstrate familiarity with observability tools and practices, including logging, metrics, and tracing, to maintain high system reliability and performance.

Nice to have

• Experience working with AI and machine learning pipelines and frameworks to build intelligent, data-driven services.
• Familiarity with security and compliance frameworks relevant to cloud infrastructure and data privacy.

Practical notes

This role is based in the United States, with a preference for candidates located on the East Coast or Midwest. The position requires full-time on-site engagement and involves travel expectations as defined by company policy. Employment is contingent upon successful completion of standard background checks and verification of credentials.