Senior Software Development Engineer - Stack Team

At Shakudo, we're building the world's first operating system for data and AI. We use the term "operating system" in the truest sense: just like iOS, Windows, or Linux, Shakudo's end-to-end OS provides ever-evolving, fully automated, best-in-class open-source components tailored to each business's unique needs.

We are seeking a Software Development Engineer III (SDE3) to join our Stack team and build end-to-end applications, integrations, and reusable solution patterns that demonstrate what is possible on Shakudo and help customers get value from their data and AI stack. This is a hands-on, high-ownership role for someone who can move across backend, frontend, Kubernetes deployments, open-source data and AI tools, and customer-specific solution requirements with speed and good technical judgment.

In this role, you will own the path from concept to production: designing and building complete solutions, integrating modern data and AI components, deploying on Kubernetes, and setting the engineering standard for the team. This is not a narrow platform engineering role — it is a full-stack, customer-impact role where success is measured by solution quality, adoption, and the reusable patterns you create for the team.

Responsibilities

• Design and build complete applications and integrations using Shakudo and open-source tools across the data and AI ecosystem
• Work across backend, frontend, infrastructure, and deployment layers to deliver production-ready customer solutions
• Build reusable components, templates, integrations, and workflows that accelerate solution delivery for the Stack team
• Solve real-world data and AI challenges with elegant, reliable, and maintainable software
• Create flagship applications that showcase the power of Shakudo for customers and internal teams
• Integrate open-source and proprietary tools into the Shakudo ecosystem, including databases, orchestration tools, AI runtimes, vector stores, notebooks, data processing engines, and model-serving systems
• Work with tools and ecosystems such as Neo4j, Spark, Ollama, Airflow, dbt, MLflow, and similar data/AI infrastructure components
• Build APIs, services, connectors, UI workflows, and automation that make these tools usable in real customer environments
• Translate customer requirements into scalable technical designs and working implementations
• Identify patterns across customer use cases and turn them into reusable solution blueprints
• Use Kubernetes and Helm to package, deploy, configure, and operate Shakudo solutions and Stack components
• Work with Kubernetes primitives such as Deployments, StatefulSets, Services, Ingress, ConfigMaps, Secrets, RBAC, StorageClasses, and network policies
• Build and maintain Helm charts or deployment templates for solution components
• Debug deployment issues across application, Kubernetes, networking, storage, permissions, and configuration layers
• Collaborate with DevOps and Customer Engineering teams to ensure solutions are reliable in production environments
• Lead technically complex initiatives from concept to production with high autonomy
• Drive architecture and design patterns for building applications and integrations on Shakudo
• Make pragmatic technical trade-offs across speed, reliability, scalability, maintainability, and customer impact
• Set the standard for building efficient, reusable, and high-impact solutions
• Mentor engineers, review designs and code, and help raise the engineering bar across the team
• Partner with Product, Customer Engineering, Solution Engineering, and DevOps teams to translate customer needs into scalable systems
• Work on problems that come directly from customer environments and production use cases
• Communicate technical decisions clearly to internal stakeholders and, when needed, customer technical teams
• Contribute documentation, demos, technical guides, and reusable patterns for the Stack team

Qualifications

• 6–8 years of experience building production software systems across the stack
• Strong backend engineering experience in languages such as Python, Go, or TypeScript
• Frontend experience with React, TypeScript, or similar modern web frameworks
• Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes in real production or customer-facing environments
• Experience building, customizing, or troubleshooting Helm charts and Kubernetes deployment manifests
• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code concepts
• Experience integrating complex systems, APIs, data platforms, or infrastructure components
• Ability to debug issues across application code, infrastructure, deployment, and configuration layers
• A strong product and customer mindset — you care about solving the actual problem, not just writing code
• High ownership, strong execution ability, and comfort working with ambiguous requirements
• Strong communication skills and the ability to explain technical trade-offs clearly

A Plus

• Experience with data engineering, AI infrastructure, MLOps, or model-serving systems
• Hands-on experience with Spark, Airflow, dbt, MLflow, Neo4j, Ollama, vector databases, or notebook environments
• Experience building internal tools, developer platforms, data applications, or customer-facing technical solutions
• Experience with Terraform, Argo CD, Flux, GitOps, or advanced deployment automation
• Experience working directly with enterprise customer environments
• Contributions to open-source cloud-native, data, AI, or developer tooling projects