Software Development Engineer IV

About Porter Porter is building the operating system for intra-city logistics in India. With ~20 million orders per month , 500K+ daily-active drivers , and rapid scale ahead ( 1.5x growth expected next year ), we solve complex real-world problems at massive scale, balancing speed, reliability, and cost efficiency in a highly operational environment. Role Overview As an SDE 4 at Porter , you own a domain or platform spanning multiple services and set its technical direction. You’ll architect systems that hold up at Porter scale, influence priorities across teams without authority, and drive quarter-long technical roadmaps mapped to business KPIs . You’ll raise the engineering bar — through design reviews, mentorship of senior and junior engineers, and active participation in hiring — and shape how the team reasons about reliability, cost, and trade-offs. You think from first principles , use AI as a force multiplier (and help others use it well), and ship systems that are reliable, observable, and economically sustainable at scale. Key Responsibilities Technical & System Design · Architect and own multi-service systems and platforms handling millions of transactions — reasoning explicitly about service contracts, failure modes across boundaries, and cross-service observability. · Drive high-level and low-level design across services — including build/buy/defer decisions framed by ROI and contribution-margin. · Perform capacity planning, back-of-the-envelope calculations, and identify system bottlenecks early — at single-service and cross-service scope. · Set technical direction for your domain via quarter-long roadmaps mapped to business KPIs; sequence delivery against tech-debt and operational risk. · Lead engineering operations for your domain: SLIs/SLAs, MTTR/MTTA, automated remediation (auto-retry, throttles, autoscaling guards), zero-downtime migrations, and cost-per-transaction awareness. Coding & Execution · Write clean, maintainable, and testable production-grade code. · Apply SOLID, design patterns, and modern engineering practices fluently. · Treat code as mentorship — strong naming, non-obvious comments only, test coverage choices that signal intent, PR-worthy from the first commit. · Design for extensibility under evolving requirements; preserve interfaces as the system grows through 2–3x changes. · Use AI to accelerate delivery, validate its outputs critically , and introduce AI workflows that lift the team — not just yourself. Ownership & Delivery · Own end-to-end delivery — from idea to system design to production to long-term operation — across multiple services and quarters. · Drive projects with high autonomy, navigate ambiguity by translating fuzzy business asks into sequenced plans with measurable outcomes, and deliver under tight timelines. · Lead operational reviews, incident management, and system improvements for your domain — own postmortems, drive MTTR/MTTA down, and build the automation that prevents repeats. · Run time-boxed experiments and DevEx upgrades (faster CI, parallel builds, standardized playbooks) with measurable impact. Collaboration & Leadership · Align teams around shared technical direction — surface integration gaps, organize cross-team forums, and mediate priority conflicts in Porter’s favor. · Partner deeply with Product, Data, and Business stakeholders; turn fuzzy operational realities into clear technical trade-offs and build/buy/defer decisions. · Mentor engineers across grades — set clear objectives for those you mentor, give specific, behaviour-based feedback, and surface early performance signals with measured action. · Raise the bar in hiring — own interview debriefs, calibrate the panel, and contribute to onboarding and interview-loop improvements. What We’re Looking For Experience · 7+ years of software development experience (SDE 4 or equivalent senior IC role). · Proven track record owning and scaling production systems end-to-end — across multiple services/domains and multiple quarters. · Demonstrated experience setting technical direction for a domain or platform and influencing teams without direct authority (via design reviews, RFCs, shared infra, hiring debriefs). · Experience working in fast-paced, high-ownership environments (startups or scale-ups preferred). Technical Skills · Strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented design . · Hands-on experience designing systems at scale — across services/domains, not just within one — with explicit reasoning about contracts, failure modes, and cross-service observability. · Deep familiarity with modern backend stacks, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure; comfort making build/buy/defer decisions with ROI framing. · Strong engineering operations chops: SLIs/SLAs, incident leadership, MTTR/MTTA improvement, capacity planning across services, and cost-per-transaction awareness. AI & First-Principles Thinking · Use AI as a productivity force multiplier, not a crutch; introduce AI workflows that lift the broader team’s velocity. · Strong judgment to validate AI-generated outputs, mentor others on when (and when not) to use AI, and reason independently when AI is wrong. · Reason from first principles on ambiguous business problems and architectural trade-offs at a quarter horizon — not just within a single feature or sprint. Leadership & Mindset · Strong sense of ownership and accountability that extends to your domain’s health (Own It). · User-first thinking with deep understanding of business impact — comfortable making build/buy/defer trade-offs with ROI in mind (User Obsession, Business & Product Acumen). · Bias for action under ambiguity — drive clarification, sequence delivery, and ship under tight timelines (Keep Moving). · Collaborate across teams without authority — mediate priority conflicts in Porter’s favor, surface integration gaps, and align stakeholders (Collaborate to Win). · Active in mentorship and hiring — set objectives for those you mentor, give specific behaviour-based feedback, and contribute to hiring debriefs (People & Talent Management). · Resilient under pressure; raise the bar for talent, quality, and execution across the team — not just your own work. Why Join Porter? · Own a domain/platform to build at massive real-world scale — your decisions directly shape millions of orders a month. · Solve unique logistics and operational challenges at the intersection of physical operations, marketplace dynamics, and consumer experience. Set technical direction with autonomy — quarter-long roadmaps, build/buy/defer decisions, and architectural calls within your domain are yours to make