Staff Software Engineer

Qualtrics Qualtrics · Seattle · Krakow, Poland · Engineering

Staff Software Engineer to lead the design and delivery of scalable, reliable, and maintainable data services using Go, Python, Java, and Scala. This role involves driving technical vision, influencing multiple teams, and solving complex problems impacting platform architecture and business outcomes, with a focus on data enrichment and customer data observability.

What you'd actually do

  1. Drive architecture and design decisions on core enrichment services critical to company data infrastructure.
  2. Lead large, cross-team projects from inception through production, removing blockers and managing dependencies.
  3. Mentor senior and mid-level engineers, influencing technical growth and increasing team effectiveness.
  4. Define technical standards and best practices for multi-language backend development (Go, Python, Java, Scala).
  5. Collaborate with product, data science, and platform teams to align technical delivery with strategic goals.

Skills

Required

  • Minimum 10 years of relevant professional experience
  • Proven track record delivering large-scale backend systems and driving cross-team engineering efforts.
  • Expertise in designing and implementing reliable, scalable distributed systems using at least two of Go, Python, Java, Scala.
  • Demonstrated leadership in setting technical vision and influencing engineering culture beyond your immediate team.
  • Experience mentoring senior engineers and leading technical discussions across organizations.
  • Strong background with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, observability tooling, and automation.
  • History of driving improvements around system reliability, scalability, and operational excellence.

Nice to have

  • Experience with data enrichment pipelines
  • Familiarity with customer data observability
  • Knowledge of platform architecture and business outcomes
  • Experience with Go, Python, Java, and Scala services

What the JD emphasized

  • critical data services
  • customer data observability
  • technical vision
  • complex problems
  • platform architecture
  • business outcomes
  • technical strategy
  • mentoring others
  • hands-on
  • ambitious technical initiatives
  • high business impact
  • architectural standards
  • long-term scalability
  • maintainability
  • senior engineers
  • critical systems
  • complex concepts
  • diverse audiences
  • engineering leadership
  • product partners
  • systemic issues
  • reliability
  • performance
  • developer productivity
  • short-term deliverables
  • strategic thinking
  • technical debt
  • platform evolution
  • organizational boundaries
  • engineering efforts
  • company goals
  • leadership scope
  • multiple teams
  • company-wide technical direction
  • large-scale distributed systems
  • multiple technology stacks
  • cross-functional collaborations
  • engineering
  • product
  • operations
  • operational excellence initiatives
  • observability
  • automation
  • incident response
  • technical advisor
  • engineering culture
  • processes
  • enrichment services
  • company data infrastructure
  • cross-team projects
  • production
  • blockers
  • dependencies
  • mid-level engineers
  • team effectiveness
  • multi-language backend development
  • data science
  • platform teams
  • strategic goals
  • operational risks
  • proactive system improvements
  • capacity planning
  • fault tolerance strategies
  • service reliability best practices
  • relevant professional experience
  • large-scale backend systems
  • cross-team engineering efforts
  • reliable
  • scalable distributed systems
  • Go
  • Python
  • Java
  • Scala
  • technical vision
  • engineering culture
  • immediate team
  • senior engineers
  • technical discussions
  • organizations
  • cloud infrastructure
  • CI/CD pipelines
  • observability tooling
  • automation
  • system reliability
  • scalability
  • operational excellence
  • data enrichment pipelines
  • critical insights
  • technical craftsmanship
  • collaboration
  • languages
  • domains
  • continuous improvement
  • innovation
  • mentorship
  • shared ownership
  • quality
  • reliability
  • infrastructure
  • data science teams
  • challenging problems
  • large scale
  • company technical strategy
  • operational maturity