Sr. Software Engineer

About the role

Viant is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join the Potens team and help evolve Magnus and Goliath, two internal platforms that power workflow orchestration and large-scale data exploration. This role focuses on extending how users and authorized AI agents interact with these systems, from creating and managing workflows to exploring BigQuery data and generating SQL. You will own software from design through deployment and ongoing support while solving complex production challenges across a full-stack environment. The position combines modernization of mature systems with the development of new AI-powered capabilities using Java, Go, JavaScript, and emerging technologies. You will play a key role in enabling secure, permission-aware access to platform features through AI tools and agents.

Key facts

What you'll do

Maintain and modernize Magnus Java applications, REST APIs, and Goliath's JavaScript/jQuery frontend while ensuring production stability.

Develop and support backend capabilities using Java and Go to power workflow orchestration and data operations.

Build production AI features and integrations using LLMs, tool calling, guardrails, evaluation, and MCP frameworks.

Integrate platform components with BigQuery, MySQL, GCP services, and internal APIs to enable seamless data workflows.

Diagnose and resolve application, workflow, database, performance, and production issues across distributed systems.

Build and maintain automated tests to deliver reliable, secure, and production-quality software releases.

Own projects end to end, from technical proposal and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and ongoing support.

Participate in code reviews and contribute to sound engineering practices, documentation, and team knowledge sharing.

Enable users and authorized AI agents to create, understand, and modify Magnus workflows through intuitive interfaces.

Support discovery, execution, and monitoring of workflows through MCP standards and tooling.

Explore BigQuery datasets and schemas interactively using Goliath with performance and cost awareness.

Generate, execute, and interpret SQL using AI while maintaining governance, auditability, and quota controls.

Securely access platform capabilities through permission-aware AI tools that enforce role-based and policy-based controls.

Contribute to the evolution of AI-powered workflow automation and data exploration experiences.

Collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutions.

Requirements

Must have a Bachelor's degree or equivalent practical experience.

Must have 6+ years of professional software engineering experience.

Must have 2+ years of hands-on experience with Java in production environments.

Must have experience writing and maintaining server-side JavaScript, jQuery, or modern frontend code.

Must have experience with containerization using Docker and orchestration using Kubernetes or GKE.

Must have strong experience with GCP and BigQuery, including performance tuning and cost management.

Must have experience designing, building, and operating REST APIs in production.

Must be comfortable working with databases including MySQL, including performance optimization and debugging.

Nice to have

Experience with MCP server/client development and AI agent or tool-calling architectures.

Hands-on Go development in production environments.

Deep GCP and BigQuery expertise including advanced query optimization and cost control.

Proficiency with Docker, Kubernetes, and GKE deployment patterns.

Strong MySQL performance optimization and troubleshooting experience.

Experience with CI/CD pipelines, including GitHub Actions and infrastructure as code.

Python development for data processing or automation tasks.

Java 8, Tomcat, JSP, CodeMirror, or Chart.js usage in production systems.

A track record of incrementally modernizing mature applications without disrupting production stability.

Practical notes

Location-based roles require work authorization in the United States.

Employment eligibility verification will be conducted in accordance with applicable laws.

This role may involve occasional travel within the Los Angeles and Irvine areas for team collaboration or onsite work.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States for this position without sponsorship.

All hiring decisions are subject to successful completion of required assessments and background checks.

The base compensation range reflects Viant's good faith estimate for this role in California and may vary based on candidate qualifications.

Role responsibilities may evolve as platforms and team priorities change.

Joining this role means contributing to critical data and workflow platforms used across Viant's enterprise customers.

You will be expected to write clean, maintainable code and participate in architectural discussions.

Ownership of production incidents and postmortems is part of the on-call responsibilities.

Continuous learning and collaboration are essential given the fast-paced evolution of AI tools and platform capabilities.

This position reports to the engineering management team within the Potens organization.

You will work alongside product managers, data engineers, and infrastructure specialists.

Success in this role requires strong problem-solving skills and ownership of end-to-end delivery.

The ideal candidate thrives in ambiguity and balances innovation with production reliability.

You will contribute to both tactical improvements and long-term platform strategy.

Exposure to AI tooling, workflow automation, and large-scale data systems is expected to grow over time.

This role is well-suited for engineers who enjoy full-stack ownership across backend, frontend, and data platforms.

You should be comfortable with both deep technical work and communicating tradeoffs to non-technical stakeholders.

If you are excited about building AI-powered features on top of complex data and workflow platforms, this role offers significant impact.