Staff Software Engineer (Reliability)

At Workiva, we prioritize a customer-first philosophy in everything we do. As a Staff Software Engineer on our Site Reliability team, you'll be designing and coding innovative solutions that elevate our solutions' reliability and performance. While this role is part of the SRE team, we're seeking a traditional Software Engineer with strong coding and design skills to complement our existing reliability expertise. You'll have the opportunity to lead, define what excellence looks like, and deliver impactful solutions across our organization.

The goal of the SRE team is to ensure Workiva customers have a seamless experience. Unlike traditional SRE models, we don’t rely on ticketing systems. Instead, we empower developer teams with tools, processes and best practices enabling them to self-serve and take ownership of their own operations. Our solutions make the right choice the easiest choice.

We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer with a passion for running services in production and building internal solutions.  Workiva is creating new complex  data processing workflows , this is a new challenge for us, where we move well beyond simple SLOs and an opportunity to design and own new solutions from the ground up, drive their implementation, and lead the team through execution. Additionally, you’ll play a key role in communicating and training stakeholders across the organization to ensure successful adoption of best practices.

What You'll Do

Leadership and Influence

• Become the technical owner of tools used by our whole engineering organization

• Lead team members in exploring new approaches that will provide innovative solutions 

• Collaborate with architects to set best practices across the organization

• Foster continuous improvement in technology, methodology, and relationships across R&D focused on increasing reliability, scalability and observability of software

• Lead design and implementation for innovative problems in the area of data quality and AI

Communication and Collaboration

• Align with staff engineers across Workiva, working together on common problems

• Clearly communicate concise technical visions and directions

• Estimate effort levels, break down complex problems, manage dependencies, create plans for complex projects

• Provide guidance and solutions to development teams to achieve company goals

Technical Skills

• Apply architectural patterns and solutions to enhance the reliability and scalability of systems

• Use Infrastructure-as-Code solutions to automate and streamline infrastructure processes

• Utilize Opentelemetry and Kubernetes to build and maintain observability and orchestration capabilities for complex environments

• Participate in on-call rotations which include 24x7 support of complex environments

• Develop and maintain code in one or more core languages (Python, Golang, Java) to support system functionality and improvements

• Collaborate on UI-related initiatives as needed, contributing to the development of user-facing technologies

• Design complete innovative applications or solutions to meet customer needs and requirements

• Design systems to enable rapid development, high availability, and clear observability

What You'll Need

Required Qualifications

• Undergraduate Degree or equivalent combination of education and experience in a related field

• 4+ years of experience in site reliability, software engineering, or other relevant experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with systems performance tuning and load testing 

• Experience with Go, Python or Java

• Experience with Amazon Web Services (AWS) or other cloud environments

• Experience with common technologies like Git, Nginx, Docker, MySQL and PostgreSQL 

• Experience with GitHub or other distributed VCS

• Experience writing code that works across platforms and browsers

• Knowledge of recent UI developments (Typescript, Dart, React, microfrontends, etc)

• Experience with Apache Kafka , ideally experience with Redshift, Snowflake or other similar system

• Excellent verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills

• Self-motivated with a strong propensity for action, results and continuous improvement

• Ability to thrive in high-energy, fast paced, rapidly changing environments

• Exceptional organizational skills with the ability to multitask and manage multiple processes, programs, and procedures simultaneously while working under pressure to meet deadlines

Travel Requirements and Working Conditions

• Willingness to travel up to 15% for team and corporate meetings, fostering relationships and representing company interests 

• Reliable internet access for any period of time working remotely, as we embrace flexible work arrangements

How You’ll Be Rewarded

✅ A discretionary bonus typically paid annually

✅ Restricted Stock Units granted at time of hire

✅ 401(k) match and comprehensive employee benefits package

The salary range represents the low and high end of the salary range for this job in the US. Minimums and maximums may vary based on location. The actual salary offer will carefully consider a wide range of factors, including your skills, qualifications, experience and other relevant factors.

Workiva is an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action Employer.  We believe that great minds think differently.  We value diversity of backgrounds, beliefs, and interests, and we recognize diversity as an important source of intellectual thought, varied perspective, and innovation.  Employment decisions are made without regard to age, race, creed, color, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other protected characteristic.  We strongly encourage and welcome people from historically marginalized groups to apply.

Workiva is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities. To request assistance with the application process, please email talentacquisition@workiva.com.
 

Workiva employees are required to undergo comprehensive security and privacy training tailored to their roles, ensuring adherence to company policies and regulatory standards.

Workiva supports employees in working where they work best - either from an office or remotely from any location within their country of employment.