About this opportunity
Staff Software Engineer
About Supernal
Supernal helps small-to-medium businesses hire their first AI employee. Our AI teammates are built using intelligent, agentic workflows deployed on a proprietary platform. We deliver working, value-generating AI Employees—not tools—that handle real business processes alongside human teams.
The Role
We're looking for a Staff/Principal Software Engineer to own and evolve the core platform that powers our AI employees. This is a technical leadership position responsible for the systems that enable our agents to scale reliably: the Django backend, distributed task infrastructure, event-driven architecture, Kubernetes deployments, and observability stack.
You'll work across the full system—from database query optimization to Helm chart tuning to designing new platform abstractions. You'll be a force multiplier for the engineering team, driving architectural decisions, eliminating scaling bottlenecks, and establishing patterns that make the platform more robust and developer-friendly.
This role reports to the Director of Engineering and involves significant autonomy in shaping technical direction.
What You'll Own
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Drive platform architecture decisions and align the team on scalable patterns and long-term maintainability
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Review a high volume of code, design docs, and architectural proposals for scalability, reliability, security, and operability
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Be a technical mentor and force multiplier: unblock engineers, raise the bar on production readiness, and establish platform best practices
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Own and evolve the core backend platform (Django/DRF/ASGI) performance and correctness
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Scale async execution across Celery + Dramatiq + Temporal/Cortex; implement resilient workflow patterns (retries, circuit breakers, graceful degradation)
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Optimize PostgreSQL/pgvector (query tuning, connection pooling) and caching strategies
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Maintain and improve Kubernetes deployment infrastructure (GKE, Helm, Terraform/OpenTofu) and CI/CD + rollout strategies. Own KEDA autoscaling policies and resource allocation across worker pools.
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Own reliability of RabbitMQ, Redis, and PostgreSQL infrastructure; lead incident response and post-mortems
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Extend OpenTelemetry + Datadog instrumentation, dashboards, alerts, and SLOs; profile and reduce latency/memory bottlenecks
What We're Looking For
Required
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10+ years building and operating production backend systems at scale
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Deep expertise in Python (Django preferred) and relational databases (PostgreSQL)
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Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Helm, and cloud infrastructure (GCP preferred)
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Strong background in distributed systems: message queues, event sourcing, workflow orchestration
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Production experience with async task systems (Celery, Dramatiq, or similar)
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Track record of debugging complex production issues across multiple services
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Ability to work autonomously and drive technical initiatives without close supervision
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Clear technical communication—able to explain tradeoffs and build consensus
Preferred
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Experience with Temporal or similar workflow engines
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Background in LLM infrastructure, RAG systems, or AI/ML platforms
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Familiarity with OpenTelemetry, Datadog, or similar observability stacks
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Experience with KEDA or other Kubernetes autoscaling solutions
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Contributions to multi-tenant SaaS platform architecture
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History of improving developer experience and platform abstractions
What Success Looks Like
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Platform services maintain high availability with predictable performance under load
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Scaling bottlenecks are identified and resolved proactively
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New features ship faster because platform primitives are well-designed and documented
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Incidents are rare, quickly detected, and thoroughly addressed
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Engineers across the team adopt platform patterns and best practices
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Technical debt is systematically identified and paid down
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You're a trusted technical voice in architectural discussions
Compensation & Logistics
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Compensation: Competitive salary commensurate with experience (Staff/Principal level)
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Location: Remote
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Type: Full-time
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Requirements: Overlap with Americas timezones for collaboration; reliable high-speed internet
Job details are provided by the employer. Confirm eligibility, compensation, and availability with the employer. wats0n is not the hiring company.
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