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Esper is a fast-growing GovTech company building a platform that connects data, stakeholders, and public policy goals to transform government operations. The platform serves state, local, and federal government agencies, making reliability, security, and compliance central to the business.
You will join as a senior individual contributor Staff Software Engineer, taking technical ownership of significant platform areas without direct reports. Your impact will include:
• Designing, building, and operating core services and product features end-to-end, from data model through API to production systems
• Setting technical direction and roadmap for your areas in partnership with engineering leadership
• Participating fully in product development, working with product and design from ambiguous problem statements through shipped features
• Modeling the domain customers work in—the entities, relationships, roles, and processes that make up government agencies—and evolving that model as the product grows
• Providing technical mentorship and design review to other engineers
You will work closely with all of engineering, as well as with product, design, auditors, and customer security teams. Strong communication skills and the ability to write clear, detailed technical documentation are essential.
The role offers significant opportunity for growth and ownership, with the ability to shape Esper's long-term direction. Benefits include paid holidays and unlimited PTO, medical/dental/vision insurance, generous parental and sick leave, 401(k) with employer match, work anniversary equity grants, quarterly bonuses, monthly remote work stipend, office equipment allowance, and paid volunteer time.
REQUIREMENTS:
• 8+ years of software engineering experience
• Strong programming skills in Java, Python, Go, or Rust; willingness to work primarily in Java
• Experience owning services in production, including data stores, deployment, and observability
• Experience with distributed systems and asynchronous or long-running workflows
• Experience with domain and data modeling, with judgment to know when a model needs to change
• Experience building production software on AWS or comparable cloud provider
• Familiarity with Docker and infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform)
• Genuine interest in the product, not just the systems
• Strong communication skills and ability to write clear technical documentation
BONUS EXPERIENCE:
• Shipping LLM-backed or agentic features to production
• Hands-on experience with agent frameworks (Strands Agents, Vercel AI SDK, LangChain4j, Spring AI, LangGraph, Pydantic AI, OpenAI Agents SDK)
• Workflow orchestration platforms (Temporal, Cadence, Step Functions)
• Amazon Bedrock, AgentCore, or deploying agents into managed runtimes
• Building evaluation, tracing, or quality monitoring tooling for LLM systems
• Ontology modeling or knowledge graphs
• Kubernetes, GitOps pipelines, and cloud architecture best practices
• Implementing technical controls for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or comparable frameworks, including audit participation
• Taking a product through FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorization
• Experience at a govtech or compliance-driven organization
