Movable Ink is standing up a new Orchestration team to build the next-generation AI decisioning layer that coordinates every message a brand sends across email, mobile, and other channels. We are looking for a Lead Engineer to set the technical direction for this platform, partner closely with the team's Engineering Manager and senior technical stakeholders to shape its architecture, and lead the hands-on design and implementation of the system from prototype to production. This is a deeply technical, high-ownership role at the intersection of distributed systems and machine learning, with high executive visibility and the opportunity to shape one of the most strategic engineering investments at the company.
This role will be reporting to the Engineering Manager of the Orchestration team.
Responsibilities:
- Set the Technical Direction: lead the architecture, design, and critical implementation decisions that take the orchestration platform from prototype to production
- Build the Platform: design and build a scalable, event-driven, fault-tolerant distributed system that processes high-volume real-time messaging decisions across workflows and channels
- Own Key System Components End-to-End: from architecture and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and incident response
- Drive Hard Technical Decisions: conduct design reviews, resolve architectural tradeoffs, and hold the team to high standards for system design, code quality, testing, and operational rigor
- Partner Across the Platform: collaborate closely with Product, Machine Learning, Data Platform, and adjacent engineering teams to translate complex requirements into clear technical designs with realistic paths to production
- Drive Operational Excellence: ensure the platform operates reliably at scale through strong observability, metrics, incident response practices, and shared on-call responsibilities for business-critical services
- Mentor and Model: serve as the senior technical voice on the team, mentoring engineers and modeling strong engineering practices
Qualifications:
- 7+ years of software engineering experience with a focus on distributed systems
- Deep experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed systems that are fault tolerant, highly available, and highly concurrent
- Strong systems thinking, with sound architectural judgment around event-driven, stateful, real-time decisioning systems
- Skill at building complex systems: identifying core primitives, making sound architectural choices under uncertainty, and adapting designs as requirements evolve
- Experience building and operating backend services in a modern cloud environment (we use Google Cloud Platform), including proficiency with container orchestration (we use Kubernetes)
- Hands-on experience with microservice and service-oriented architectures, including the inter-service communication patterns that compose them — synchronous, event-sourced, orchestrated, and asynchronous (we use gRPC and Kafka)
- Strong foundation in Python
- Experience with Elixir — which we use for building concurrent, fault-tolerant services — is a strong plus. Experience with Erlang, Scala/Akka, Go, or Clojure also transfers well
- Practical experience evaluating and designing for distributed systems fundamentals: consensus, partitioning, replication, back-pressure, idempotency, and failure handling
- Exemplary software engineering practices (system design, code review, testing, CI/CD)
- Strong focus on operational excellence, including observability, incident response, and healthy on-call practices
- Strong technical leadership skills, with the ability to drive architectural decisions, lead design reviews, and mentor other engineers
- Exceptional problem-solving skills, including the ability to efficiently identify, analyze, and resolve complex issues in production systems
- Clear communicator who can translate technical tradeoffs into practical decisions with product and engineering stakeholders
- (Nice to have) Experience with workflow orchestration systems (e.g. Prefect, Airflow, Dagster, Temporal)
- (Nice to have) Experience building, operating, or integrating with ML-driven decisioning or scoring systems
The base pay range for this position is $147,300 - $192,000 CAD/year, which can include additional bonus depending on the position ultimately offered, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. The base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.
Studies have shown that women, communities of color, and historically underrepresented people are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. We are committed to building a diverse and inclusive culture where all Inkers can thrive. If you’re excited about the role but don’t meet all of the abovementioned qualifications, we encourage you to apply. Our differences bring a breadth of knowledge and perspectives that makes us collectively stronger.
We welcome and employ people regardless of race, color, gender identity or expression, religion, genetic information, parental or pregnancy status, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, ethnicity, family or marital status, physical and mental ability, political affiliation, disability, Veteran status, or other protected characteristics. We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer.
Skills Required
- 7+ years of software engineering experience focused on distributed systems
- Experience designing, building, and operating large-scale fault-tolerant, highly available, highly concurrent distributed systems
- Strong systems thinking and architectural judgment for event-driven, stateful, real-time decisioning systems
- Ability to identify core system primitives, make architectural choices under uncertainty, and adapt designs as requirements evolve
- Experience building and operating backend services in a modern cloud environment, including Google Cloud Platform
- Proficiency with container orchestration using Kubernetes
- Hands-on experience with microservice and service-oriented architectures
- Experience with synchronous, event-sourced, orchestrated, and asynchronous inter-service communication patterns
- Experience with gRPC and Kafka
- Strong foundation in Python
- Experience with Elixir
- Experience with Erlang, Scala/Akka, Go, or Clojure
- Practical experience with distributed systems fundamentals including consensus, partitioning, replication, back-pressure, idempotency, and failure handling
- Exemplary software engineering practices including system design, code review, testing, and CI/CD
- Strong operational excellence skills, including observability, incident response, and healthy on-call practices
- Strong technical leadership skills, including architectural decision-making, design reviews, and mentoring engineers
- Exceptional problem-solving skills for identifying, analyzing, and resolving complex production issues
- Clear communication skills for translating technical tradeoffs into practical product and engineering decisions
- Experience with workflow orchestration systems such as Prefect, Airflow, Dagster, or Temporal
- Experience building, operating, or integrating with machine-learning-driven decisioning or scoring systems
What the Team is Saying
Movable Ink Compensation & Benefits Highlights
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Parental & Family Support — Parental leave is highlighted as a strong area, with feedback suggesting substantial paid time for both birthing and non-birthing parents.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Generous PTO and paid time off are consistently emphasized, and benefit-specific commentary cites strong vacation and time-off experiences.
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Healthcare Strength — Medical, dental, and vision coverage are core offerings, and sentiment around health benefits trends moderately positive.
Movable Ink Insights
What We Do
Movable Ink personalizes every customer engagement through automation and artificial intelligence. The world’s most innovative brands rely on Movable Ink to maximize revenue, simplify workflow and achieve the optimal customer experience. Headquartered in New York City with 600 employees, Movable Ink serves its global client base with operations throughout North America, Central America, Europe, and Australia.
Why Work With Us
Look closely at any Inker and you will find that our values remain heartfelt and timeless. We seek out knowledge and cultivate our intuition. We understand that communication starts by listening, understanding, and caring about others' success. We set a high personal bar, believe nothing is impossible, and commit ourselves fully to the goal.
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Movable Ink Offices
Hybrid Workspace
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
Employees engage in a combination of remote and on-site work.
