ELSA

Overview of job

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will play a key role in developing and deploying software that solves critical business needs. You will not only be a skilled developer but also a leader and mentor, guiding your team to deliver high-quality, reliable, and maintainable software. You will have the opportunity to shape the development pipeline, influence technical decisions, and collaborate with stakeholders across the organization.

Key Responsibilities:

Technical Leadership:

• Demonstrate thought leadership by contributing to technical design decisions that span vertically through the team's ownership.
• Overcome obstacles and setbacks, adapting to ambiguity, and communicating changes to plans effectively and in a timely manner.

Infrastructure and Operations:

• You keep the CICD pipelines in good health, adjusting them as needed.
• You actively set availability and failure rate goals for services your team owns, and pursue them.
• Identify and influence the resolution of infrastructure issues to maintain a reliable and efficient soft environment.

Team Collaboration and Growth:

• You force multiply for your team by finding ways to enable them to do more each da
• Fostering an environment of knowledge sharing and collaboration within the team.
• Focus on enabling colleagues to solve problems independently rather than providing instant solutions.

Code and Quality:

• Your code quality is exemplary.
• Advocate for automating repetitive tasks to reduce errors, save time, and improve efficiency
• Demonstrate a deep understanding of design patterns and architectural principles.
• Continuous Improvement:
• Staying up-to-date on industry trends and technologies relevant to the team's work.
• Embracing experimentation and data-driven decision making for continuous improvement.

Customer Focus:

• Empathising with customer needs and translating them into technical solutions.
• Gathering and analysing customer feedback to inform product development and improvement.

• Competitive compensation package + Stock options
• Hybrid working model: 9:00 AM 6:00 PM, Monday to Friday, with one remote Friday every week
• Paid time off: 12 days of annual leave, plus 1 birthday leave and 1 Christmas leave
• Premium health insurance and annual health check-up to keep you in top shape
• Full coverage of social insurance
• Free ELSA Premium membership to help you sharpen your English skills
• International, collaborative, and high-energy work culture
• Be part of a well-funded, fast-growing Silicon Valley startup, where innovation and agility are at the core of what we do
• Work at the storefront of AI applied to language learning.

Core Engineering Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience in fast-paced, product-driven environments
• Proven experience delivering and operating production systems at scale

Mobile Development (Required)

• Hands-on experience with mobile application development:
• Native iOS (Swift) and/or Android (Kotlin), or
• Cross-platform frameworks such as Flutter
• Solid understanding of mobile architecture, performance, and release processes

Backend & Cloud

• Strong experience with backend development using modern frameworks and APIs
• Experience working with AWS (EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda, RDS/DynamoDB, S3, CloudWatch, etc.)
• Familiarity with microservices architecture and REST/gRPC-based systems

DevOps & Engineering Practices

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment workflows
• Understanding of observability, monitoring, and incident response
• Strong grasp of software development best practices and SDLC in high-growth environments

Technical & Soft Skills

• Excellent problem-solving and analytical thinking
• Ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Data-driven mindset and openness to experimentation
• Comfortable using AI-assisted development tools to improve productivity

Language

• Upper-intermediate English or higher (working proficiency in an international environment)