Sr Software Engineer

We’re Blue River, a team of innovators driven to create intelligent machinery that solves monumental problems for our customers. We empower our customers – farmers, construction crews, and foresters - to implement safer and more sustainable solutions, driving increased profitability with less reliance on scarce labor. We believe that focusing on the small stuff – pixel-by-pixel and task-by-task - leads to big gains. With our partners at John Deere, we have the ability to bring innovative computer vision, machine learning, robotics, and product management solutions to scale production, maximizing their potential impact.

Our people are at the heart of what we do. Through cross-discipline collaboration, this mission-driven and daring team is eager to define the new frontier of mobile robotics. We are always asking hard questions, rapidly iterating, and getting our boots in the field and on-site to figure it out. We won’t give up until we’ve made a tangible and positive impact on the planet. 

Blue River Technology is based in Santa Clara, CA. 

Summary

We are looking for a Sr Software Engineer to join our Data/CVML platform team at Blue River. You will play a key role in building the foundational platform for developing our next generation of autonomy and automation products at BRT. This role puts you at the intersection of robotics, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning, where you'll bridge the gap between our physical robots and the power of data science. You'll be building the software, data pipelines, and APIs that empower our product teams to create innovative Computer Vision and Machine Learning applications using data from our robots. This includes everything from data acquisition and processing to model training and deployment, with a specific focus on creating scalable and efficient solutions for the entire organization. You will work closely with both robotics engineers, ML Engineers, and data scientists to ensure our robots are learning and improving continuously.

The ideal candidate is an experienced platform builder and data wrangler who enjoys optimizing data and ML systems and building them from the ground up. The Engineer will support our software developers, data analysts, data scientists, robotics, and ML Engineers on data/ML initiatives. The Engineer should be comfortable with the MLOps approach and related technologies and be able to design and implement software applications, APIs, and data pipelines. They must be self-directed and comfortable supporting the data needs of multiple teams, systems, and products. The right candidate will be excited by the prospect of optimizing or even redesigning our company’s data and ML platform to support our next generation of products and data initiatives. We would be interested in hearing from you if you are a driven Software Engineer with a solid background in data/ML and a desire to develop effective and scalable data solutions. 

This position is eligible for full remote work within the US. Join us to help create a data-driven future.

Job Responsibilities

The main job responsibilities are noted below. 

• Design and develop software systems for collecting, processing, and analyzing data from robots and IoT devices.
• Develop and maintain APIs and SDKs that allow product teams to seamlessly integrate robotics data into their CVML workflows.
• Build tools and applications that facilitate the development, deployment, and monitoring of CVML models for robotics applications.
• Collaborate with robotics and ML engineers to define data requirements for ML model training and validation.
• Develop and implement data pipelines for efficient data flow between robots and ML models.
• Translate ML requirements into actionable insights for robotics engineers to improve robot design and performance.
• Work with data scientists to optimize model performance and ensure data quality.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in robotics, IoT, and ML.
• Assemble large, complex data sets that meet functional / non-functional business requirements.
• Identify, design, and implement internal process improvements: automating manual processes, optimizing data delivery, re-designing infrastructure for greater scalability, etc.
• Work with stakeholders, including Product Managers and CVML engineers/data scientists.
• Collaboration: Work closely with cross-functional teams, including data scientists, analysts, software engineers, and product managers, to understand data requirements and deliver data solutions that align with business goals.
• Documentation: Create and maintain technical documentation, including data flow diagrams, architecture designs, and standard operating procedures.
• Technology Evaluation: Stay up-to-date with industry trends and emerging technologies related to data engineering, recommending and implementing new tools and frameworks as appropriate.

Required Experience and Skills

• 5+ years of experience building data platforms/data backends.
• 5+ years experience developing software applications and tooling.
• Strong programming skills in Python. C++ knowledge will be a huge plus.
• Experience building and optimizing ‘big data’ data pipelines using Spark, architectures, and data sets.
• Experience performing root cause analysis on internal and external data and processes to answer specific business questions and identify opportunities for improvement.
• Familiar with best practices in building CVML  pipelines.
• Strong analytical skills related to working with unstructured datasets.
• Working knowledge of message queuing, stream processing, and highly scalable ‘big data’ data stores.
• Experience supporting and working with cross-functional teams in a dynamic environment.
• They should have experience using the following software/tools:
  • Experience with AWS cloud services: EC2, Lambda, Kinesis, RDS.
  • Experience with big data tools: DataBricks, Spark, Kafka.
  • Experience with relational SQL and NoSQL databases.
  • Experience with data pipeline and workflow orchestration tooling such as Airflow.
• Has experience with distributed computing, preferably Spark.
• Knows how to use git and/or other versioning systems.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to troubleshoot complex data-related issues.
• Excellent communication skills to collaborate effectively with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Attention to detail and commitment to producing high-quality, well-documented code.
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP) and containerization (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes) is a plus.

Preferred Experience and Skills

• They should also have experience using the following software/tools:
  • Experience with object-oriented/object-function scripting languages like Python. 
  • Experience with Terraform.
• Experience with image processing and labeling platforms.
• Can understand some C++ or Go, or talk with people that do.
• Prior experience in the autonomy and robotics space is a huge plus.

At Blue River, we’re passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity.  While we have more work to do to advance diversity and inclusion, we’re investing in our programs, including recruiting, mentorship, career development, and learning & development to ensure they support our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals. We support each employee in living a full life, enabling a thriving career, and accomplishing a meaningful, challenging mission while collaborating with incredible people. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align completely with the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway.

We are an equal-opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request an accommodation. 

The US annual base salary range for this position is $142,000 - $250,000, along with eligibility for Blue River’s bonus and benefit programs. Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process. During the recruitment process, we may identify an alternative role or level to which you are more suited. If your ideal role at Blue River differs from the advertised position, we will provide an updated pay range as soon as possible during the hiring process.

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