Senior Staff Software Engineer

Optimizely is hiring a Senior Staff Software Engineer for Optimizely Analytics, its warehouse-native analytics platform. The role leads the architecture and scaling of the platform’s query compilation engine and NetScript DSL, while setting engineering standards, mentoring engineers, and shaping technical and product direction.

Responsibilities:

• Own and evolve the architecture of Optimizely Analytics' query compilation engine and NetScript DSL, ensuring they scale reliably and securely across diverse warehouse environments
• Drive technical excellence across the engineering organization by setting standards for code quality, query performance, system design, observability, and operational best practices
• Collaborate closely with Product, UX, and Application Engineering teams to deliver impactful features while ensuring architectural soundness and scalability
• Mentor and guide senior and mid-level engineers, fostering technical growth and elevating the overall team’s capabilities
• Anticipate and address complex system challenges such as query optimization, SQL compilation, fault tolerance, and data-intensive analytical workloads
• Influence product and platform direction, leveraging deep technical insight in analytics and query languages to shape roadmap decisions and ensure backend systems align with long-term business strategy

Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience
• 10+ years of software development experience with strong foundations in data structures, algorithms, and distributed systems
• 7+ years of backend experience building, deploying, and operating large-scale distributed systems in production
• Deep expertise in system design, API design, scalability, and performance tuning, with strong SQL proficiency and an understanding of analytical query patterns
• Proficiency in at least one modern backend programming language (Java preferred)
• Hands-on experience with cloud-native architectures, containerization, orchestration, and CI/CD pipelines
• Experience with query engines, compilers, interpreters, or domain-specific language (DSL) design
• Passion for working in fast-paced environments where you wear multiple hats and influence both product and technology
• Bachelor's Degree (Computer Science or engineering preferred) or equivalent work experience
• Prior experience as a staff or principal engineer, driving large cross-functional initiatives to completion with org-wide technical influence
• Experience building enterprise-grade analytics infrastructure or data platforms that handle high-volume, low-latency analytical workloads
• Proven ability to influence architecture and technical strategy across multiple teams
• A track record of mentoring engineers and scaling engineering organizations
• Familiarity with warehouse-native architectures (Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks) and advanced SQL optimization techniques