Staff Software Engineer - Backend Development
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The Role
The role involves providing technical leadership in backend development, ensuring scalability and security of high-throughput systems, driving architecture patterns, and mentoring engineers.
Summary Generated by Built In
At Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America (MBRDNA), we are committed to delivering world-class automotive technologies that push the boundaries of what is possible. Our teams of highly skilled engineers and designers use cutting-edge software and technology, to enhance the driving experience and reduce environmental impact.
We are building OneAI Products on top of the OneAI platform, creating exciting opportunities in data and backend engineering that directly power the Mercedes-Benz cars of the future. As connected vehicles generate increasing volumes of high-value data, the way this data is processed, stored, and delivered becomes business-critical. This role focuses on leveraging the latest technologies to design and scale backend services that bring AI-driven products and services seamlessly into the customer experience. As a Staff Backend Engineer, you will provide technical leadership and architectural direction, ensuring our platforms integrate cutting-edge AI capabilities while remaining secure, reliable, and globally scalable. You will work across teams and stakeholders to shape next-generation data and backend products that define the future of mobility.
Job Responsibilities:
- Define and own the technical vision for large-scale backend systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and security across millions of daily requests.
- Set enterprise-level architectural patterns and guidelines, influencing backend design across multiple teams.
- Make build-vs-buy and system evolution decisions with a long-term perspective on cost, maintainability, and innovation.
- Drive design and implementation of high-throughput, low-latency data pipelines integrating vehicle and third-party content.
- Own and evolve API ecosystems consumed by both internal platforms and external partners.
- Champion observability, reliability, and performance, enforcing SLAs and leading root-cause analysis for critical issues.
- Act as a trusted technical partner to product, security, infrastructure, and data science organizations.
- Drive consensus on backend strategy and technical priorities across distributed global teams.
- Represent backend engineering in executive and cross-functional forums, providing data-driven recommendations.
- Mentor and develop engineers at all levels, with a focus on scaling senior talent into staff/principal engineers.
- Champion engineering excellence in coding, testing, CI/CD, and security practices. Foster a culture of innovation, inclusivity, and continuous improvement.
Minimum Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field.
- 10+ years professional backend engineering experience (or 8+ with Master’s, 6+ with PhD).
- Proven record of leading design and delivery of large-scale, distributed backend systems in production.
- Expert in:
- Distributed data systems, stream processing (Apache Flink, Spark Streaming).
- Cloud-native architectures (Azure, AWS, GCP).
- Containerized application development (Kubernetes, Docker).
- API development (Go, Java/Spring Boot).
- Advanced SQL/NoSQL data modeling and optimization.
- Infrastructure as Code and modern CI/CD pipelines. Security, compliance, and governance of production-grade systems.
- Demonstrated ability to:
- Lead multi-team projects and deliver strategic impact.
- Make high-judgment technical tradeoffs balancing innovation, scalability, and cost.
- Influence at executive and global engineering leadership levels.
- Valid Driver's license.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience with frontend or full-stack development to support end-to-end feature delivery.
- Background in automotive, IoT, or real-time data domains.
- Contributions to open-source projects or published technical work.
The successful candidate’s starting pay will be determined based on a wide range of factors, including, but not limited to, job-related education, skills, and experience, geographic location, and market conditions. The current salary range for this position is as follows and may be modified in the future: $152,300 - $194,100.
Why should you apply?
Here at MBRDNA, you create digital ecosystems around cars, you design a language between humans and machines, you make a car even more intelligent - you make the new reality for cars. MBRDNA was honored as one of the "Best Places to Work" by BuiltIn in January 2024, a testament to our commitment to creating an exceptional work environment. At each of our offices, we foster a culture of collaboration and continuous learning, ensuring every team member can thrive and innovate.
Benefits for Full-Time* Employees Include:
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their families
• 401(k) with employer match
• Up to 18 company-paid holidays
• Paid time off (flexible time off for salaried employees), sick time, and parental leave
• Tuition assistance program
• Wellness/Fitness reimbursement programs
* Internships & Contractors excluded from Full-Time Employee benefits
MBRDNA is an equal opportunity employer (EOE) and strongly supports diversity in the workforce. MBRDNA only accepts resumes from approved agencies who have a valid Agency Agreement on file. Please do not forward resumes to our applicant tracking system, MBRDNA employees, or send to any MBRDNA location. MBRDNA is not responsible for any fees or claims related to receipt of unsolicited resumes.
Mercedes-Benz Research and Development North America, Inc.
PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS
https://mbrdna.com/california-employee-privacy-notice/
Top Skills
Apache Flink
AWS
Azure
Docker
GCP
Go
Java Spring Boot
Kubernetes
NoSQL
Spark Streaming
SQL
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The Company
What We Do
Mercedes-Benz Research & Development North America (MBRDNA) is continuously striving to innovate premium mobility. It is a place for exceptional people with outstanding ideas and the absolute willingness to bring them to life. We are not about cars only - we are also about the latest and greatest software, cutting-edge technology, and groundbreaking innovation: Embedded in a worldwide network MBRDNA is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, with key areas of Autonomous Driving, Advanced Interaction Design, Digital User Experience, Machine Learning, Costumer Research, and Open Innovation. In Redford, Michigan, the focus is on Powertrain and eDrive technology as well as in Long Beach, where the teams test durability of the latest driver assistant and telematic systems. The Digital Hub in Seattle focusses on developing a cloud architecture and building out the cloud platform for the next generation of connected car services. The Testing and Regulatory Affairs Division in Ann Arbor and the Advanced Vehicle Design in Carlsbad complete the competence center.
