Principal Software Engineer, ML & Robotics Platform

Blue River Technology is a team of innovators focused on creating intelligent machinery for various industries. They are seeking a Principal Software Engineer to lead the development of backend systems and APIs for their robotics and machine learning platform, enabling efficient deployment of intelligent systems at scale.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services and APIs that power robotics and ML workflows
• Develop developer-facing applications and tools (UI + backend) for model training, evaluation, debugging, and data exploration
• Own service architecture, performance, scalability, and maintainability across critical systems
• Translate complex workflows into intuitive, reliable, and high-performing software systems
• Own and drive technical vision and architecture for backend systems and applications
• Serve as technical lead for large, cross-functional initiatives
• Mentor and guide Senior and Staff Engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and architectural decisions
• Establish engineering best practices for backend development, system design, and code quality
• Partner closely with ML Engineers, Data Scientists, Robotics Engineers, and Product teams
• Enable faster experimentation and iteration by building robust, user-centric developer tools
• Clearly communicate technical decisions, tradeoffs, and architecture to stakeholders
• Ensure services are production-ready, observable, and reliable
• Collaborate with platform and infrastructure teams on deployment, monitoring, and scaling strategies
• Contribute to data workflows and pipelines where needed to support application use cases
• Get hands-on to unblock teams and solve complex technical challenges
• Lead delivery of high-impact initiatives from design through production
• Apply a customer-first mindset to ensure solutions drive meaningful impact

Requirements:

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with demonstrated impact at the Staff or Principal level
• Strong expertise in backend engineering and distributed systems design
• Proven experience building scalable APIs and backend services in production environments
• Experience developing full-stack applications (backend + frontend)
• Strong programming experience in Python (or similar backend languages)
• Experience with modern frontend frameworks (e.g., React)
• Solid understanding of system design, scalability, and performance optimization
• Experience with databases (e.g., Postgres, MongoDB, or similar)
• Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS or similar)
• Experience working with data-intensive systems or workflows
• Strong architectural judgment and problem-solving skills
• Excellent communication and collaboration abilities
• Experience building systems that support machine learning, computer vision, or robotics workflows
• Familiarity with ML lifecycle tooling and experimentation workflows
• Experience designing internal tools or developer platforms
• Exposure to data processing frameworks (e.g., Spark, Airflow, or similar)
• Experience with C++ in performance-critical or robotics-adjacent systems
• Strong focus on developer experience (DX)
• Experience influencing technical direction across teams