Senior Software Engineer - Backend / Cloud Services

Hunter Agriculture is a global leader in the irrigation, outdoor lighting, and custom manufacturing industries. They are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to provide hands-on technical leadership for backend systems supporting their AWS-based IoT consumer application, focusing on cloud architecture and microservices development.

Responsibilities:

• Leads the technical design, implementation, and evolution of backend and cloud services for a scalable AWS-based IoT consumer application
• Owns backend architecture across APIs, service domains, data models, event-driven workflows, telemetry pipelines, AWS IoT Core integrations, and cloud/device communication patterns
• Designs, develops, deploys, and maintains Python-based AWS Lambda microservices, RESTful APIs, and backend services that connect mobile and web applications to cloud, device, scheduling, user, notification, reporting, and support functions
• Provides player-coach technical leadership to backend engineers, consultants, and cross-functional contributors through design reviews, code reviews, mentoring, implementation guidance, and hands-on development
• Defines and documents architecture patterns, API contracts, data flows, service boundaries, schema standards, integration patterns, and operational expectations
• Leads cross-functional technical alignment with firmware, mobile, QA, DevOps, Product, Security, and consultant teams to translate requirements into reliable backend, cloud, and device communication designs
• Designs and implements scalable AWS IoT Core and telemetry architectures, including secure device connectivity, MQTT communication, Device Shadows, command processing, device synchronization, event ingestion, and fleet-scale operational patterns
• Owns backend service logic, data models, and automation workflows that support irrigation scheduling, user preferences, environmental conditions, offline behavior, provisioning, notifications, firmware workflows, reporting, analytics, and AI/ML-supported recommendations
• Ensures backend systems are production-ready through monitoring, alerting, structured logging, testing, CI/CD integration, deployment safety, incident response, root-cause analysis, and operational runbooks
• Implements secure backend and cloud practices, including authentication, authorization, access controls, data protection, secrets management, least-privilege permissions, and secure device communication
• Troubleshoots and resolves complex production and integration issues, ensuring high availability, data integrity, and minimal customer impact
• Leads technical planning for backend and cloud initiatives by translating product requirements, integration needs, and architectural goals into implementation plans, estimates, sequencing, and delivery milestones
• Establishes and improves backend engineering standards, including coding practices, service templates, Terraform module patterns, testing expectations, review processes, documentation practices, and reusable implementation patterns
• Guides long-term backend and cloud technical roadmap decisions, including platform scalability, service decomposition, technical debt reduction, cost optimization, multi-environment strategy, and support for future connected device capabilities
• Reviews and validates technical deliverables from internal engineers, consultants, and vendor partners to ensure alignment with Hunter architecture standards, security expectations, operational requirements, and product goals
• Focuses on the voice of the customer and continuously improves products and services to deliver meaningful user value

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or a related technical field, or a combination of education and relevant work experience
• Minimum six years of professional software engineering experience, including four years designing and operating backend/cloud systems in production
• Advanced proficiency designing, developing, deploying, and maintaining production backend services using Python
• Strong hands-on experience building AWS Lambda microservices, REST APIs, event-driven workflows, and serverless backend systems
• Hands-on experience with Terraform or similar Infrastructure-as-Code tools to define, deploy, and maintain cloud infrastructure across multiple environments
• Strong working knowledge of AWS services including Lambda, API Gateway, AWS IoT Core, Device Shadows, EventBridge, SQS, DynamoDB, Aurora/RDS, S3, CloudWatch, IAM, Secrets Manager, and related serverless technologies
• Experience designing scalable backend architectures, service boundaries, API contracts, data flows, database models, and integration patterns for production applications
• Strong understanding of AWS IoT Core concepts including MQTT communication, Device Shadows, IoT Rules, telemetry ingestion, command processing, secure device connectivity, and fleet-scale device communication
• Strong database design skills across SQL and NoSQL systems, including schema design, indexing, query optimization, data modeling, and performance considerations
• Experience implementing secure backend systems, including authentication, authorization, OAuth/OIDC, JWT, IAM policies, least-privilege access, secrets management, data protection, and secure API design
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate technical tradeoffs involving scalability, cost, performance, reliability, security, observability, maintainability, and delivery speed
• Experience with testing, CI/CD, code quality practices, automated deployment, structured logging, monitoring, alerting, troubleshooting, and production support
• Demonstrated ability to provide technical leadership as a player-coach through hands-on development, design reviews, code reviews, mentoring, implementation guidance, documentation, and reusable engineering patterns
• Ability to collaborate effectively with firmware, mobile, QA, DevOps, Product, Security, consultants, and other cross-functional partners, including the ability to document architecture, APIs, data flows, technical decisions, operational expectations, and implementation plans
• Experience leading technical design for distributed, serverless, event-driven, or IoT-connected systems preferred