Sr. Software Engineer, Platform Engineering

DroneUp was born out of a vision to make autonomous flight great for communities, great for business, and great for the world. Yet more than visionaries; we have the tools, instruments, focus, and expertise to execute while utilizing a “People Matter Most” mentality.

Our founder envisioned a massive, untapped opportunity to leverage autonomous flight that would revolutionize how the world may "pitch" and "roll" in the future. To start, we have harnessed the power of airspace technology, analytics platforms, and drone services to transform business operations. Our long-term mission is to be “Safe and Be Exceptional” while building and deploying the world's most accessible drone ecosystem.

Ranked in the top 25 of LinkedIn Top Startups 2022, DroneUp is Headquartered in Virginia Beach, Virginia and provides drone delivery service in 34 locations across six states in partnership with the #1 retailer in the world, Walmart, Inc.

In 2022 DroneUp was on the list of "Next Big Things in Tech" but we are more than just invested in the drone ecosystem; we are equally invested in our people and landed successfully as a certified "Great Place to Work" in 2023. Knowing that our mission critical success comes directly from the people we bring onboard, we strive to provide opportunities for our employees to learn, grow, and go beyond the normal Field of View! Come fly with us as our team goes through our checklists that will “Inspire Fast Action” and take an entire industry to new heights. “Be a Person Others Want to Follow!”

Position Summary

DroneUp is seeking a Senior Platform Engineer who will be responsible for developing, maintaining, and continuously improving and supporting both internal and client-facing IT infrastructure as well as our internal developer platform. The ideal candidate is a strong developer as well as an engineer strong in operations. Senior engineers are also expected to mentor, grow, and pair with existing platform engineers. The Platform Engineering organization at DroneUp is responsible for the developer experience including all cloud, security, CI/CD, and all related tooling and is working to build our internal developer platform for software delivery and orchestration at scale. Some of our principles in Platform Engineering are: self-service, security by default, a bias towards automation, and emotional intelligence.

Responsibilities

• Architect and support tools or in-house programs
• Support a multi-cloud environment, including AWS, Azure, and GCP
• Provide feedback to others and participate in peer reviews / pair programming
• Actively practice Test Driven Development through designing, development, and debugging unit and integration tests for new and existing infrastructure and code
• Continuous curiosity of existing implementations and new technologies and sharing with the team
• Identify and fix root cause defects and production bugs, communicate impact of bugs and work with stakeholders to schedule fixes
• Understand and research changes to external integrations and update code
• Practice continuous improvement across all job areas and personally / professionally
• Clearly communicate with the team and other stakeholders and provide technical direction while doing so
• Stay current with platform changes and third-party libraries
• Proactively investigate better solutions for current solutions
• An understanding of Open Telemetry and true observability and the difference between it and monitoring and logging
• Grow the engineering culture towards a high-performing team
• Practice the arts of self-service, least privilege, and security by default in all solutions
• Other duties as assigned

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related field or 5+ years experience as a software engineer
• Proficiency in kubernetes; Optional: CKA, CKAD
• Extensive experience in Unix / Linux
• Polyglot and proficiency in multiple languages (ideally: Golang, Python, HCL and more)
• Prior experience as a software engineer/developer
• Knowledge of multi-cloud environment, including AWS, Azure and GCP (familiar with at least two of these environments)
• Experience in using git in trunk-based development models
• Experience with backend database technology is a plus, including supporting and performance enhancements
• Advanced experience working with and creating public cloud resources in Terraform or other infrastructure as code tools
• Experience participating in a 24/7 on-call schedule without supervision and successfully resolving issues without escalation
• Experience using Open Telemetry for observability as well as other monitoring tools such as datadog, new relic and others
• Good understanding of networking and routing principles
• Experience in dockerizing applications and orchestrating them with kubernetes
• Familiarity with security configuration for web/api services (SSL, Access control)
• Experience with JIRA or other work tracking systems
• Ability to resolve tickets according to priority order and collaborating with the Technical Product Manager to adjust priorities
• Excellent documentation details, using Confluence or similar tooling – this could include support notes, runbooks, ADRs, etc
• Familiarity with creating an end to end CI/CD pipeline using various tools with artifact storage
• Familiarity with use of MacOS as a desktop and predominantly CLI interfaces
• Experience in a “product mindset” by understanding stakeholder needs, priorities, and business value

Our tooling stack includes but is not limited to:

• CircleCI
• Github
• GCP
• Kubernetes (via GKE)
• Secrets Management
• Feature Flagging
• Terraform

Benefits

• Medical Insurance
• Dental Insurance
• Vision Insurance
• Short Term & Long Term Disability
• Basic & Voluntary Life Insurance
• 401(k) with company match
• Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
• Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
• Legal Services
• Identity Protection
• Accident Insurance
• Critical Illness Insurance
• Hospital Indemnity Insurance
• Pet Insurance
• Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick, Holiday)

Salary

Just like drones themselves, your earning potential can soar to new heights, but it largely depends on your qualifications and expertise. If you are recognized as an industry expert, your earning potential can take true flight. The target salary range for this position is $125,000 to $155,000. Your unique qualifications and contributions to the field will play a significant role in determining your precise compensation. The total rewards for this position may also include; potential for annual bonuses, benefits package, paid time off, and more.

$125,000 - $155,000

Equal Employment Opportunity Policy

DroneUp is committed to hiring and developing the most qualified individuals, regardless of sex, age, race, national origin, disability or other protected characteristics. DroneUp subscribes to the equal employment opportunity requirements of applicable law. It is the policy of DroneUp to ensure equal opportunity to all employees and applicants in all employment matters, including, but not limited to, recruitment, hiring, placement, compensation, training, promotion, and separation. In these and all activities, DroneUp does not discriminate against any qualified individual because of sex, age, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, familial status, marital status, sexual orientation, sexual preference, gender identity disability, handicap, liability for service in the United States Armed Forces, veteran status, and/or any other legally protected characteristic.

Any individual who feels that he or she may have been discriminated against in violation of this policy is strongly encouraged to immediately contact his or her supervisor or any member of DroneUp management. Any member of DroneUp management who is notified of alleged discrimination is required to immediately report the incident to the HR Department.

DroneUp will thoroughly investigate all such claims with due regard for the privacy of the individuals involved. Any employee who knowingly retaliates against an employee who has reported workplace discrimination will be subject to immediate corrective action, up to and potentially including termination of employment. 

Security Responsibility Statement:  Employees are expected to provide a high level of security to any personal or private information accessed as part of their work, whether at a DroneUp facility or remotely.  This includes participating in security training, remaining sensitive to individual rights to personal privacy, and complying with company policies. Employees who have access to sensitive data that is protected by regulation, such as HIPAA, or by contract, such as credit card data, must comply with any additional requirements dictated by the governing regulations or associated contracts.