Senior Geospatial Software Engineer

About Element 84

Element 84 is a woman-owned small business that works with public, private, and non-profit sector clients to develop geospatial data processing pipelines & build software that helps answer big questions about our health, our infrastructure, and our changing planet. We solve challenging problems across a wide range of industries, but our super power is cloud-based geospatial data processing, remote sensing, and Earth science systems. Our headquarters is located in Alexandria, VA and we have a satellite office in Philadelphia, PA. Element 84 also supports a large remote workforce from a variety of other states.

A Few Other Things You Should Know

• Element 84's values are: We Invest in Each Other, We are Reliable, and Our Work Benefits our World.
• Element 84 works on meaningful projects that are challenging—from a technical, people, and team perspective. We make an impact on large projects through our leadership and expertise, both formal and informal.
• Element 84 values life outside of work. We offer parental leave for everyone and support each other through family challenges like medical problems, adoptions, and new babies.
• Element 84 has had a flexible work schedule since our founding in 2010.
• Element 84 is committed to fostering a culture of curiosity and respect for all individuals as we constantly strive to create a work environment where everyone feels welcome and supported.

About You

You are curious about the world, are constantly learning, driven to lead (formally or informally), and have a strong work ethic. You're interested in solving impactful problems in science, medicine, and other projects that have a societal good. You can work independently or with a team, prioritize your projects, and be effective without micromanagement.

You'll care about writing. Our team is remote and written communication is essential. In addition to caring about a well-crafted email and a succinct conference abstract, you understand that good writing is good design and engineering.

What You Will Do

A talented geospatial software engineer is needed on the Element 84 team to support our federal clients in their mission. Element 84 works primarily with NASA, NOAA, and USGS on projects involving the processing, distribution, and visualization of geospatial and remotely sensed data in the Cloud. As a member of this team, this software engineer will build innovative tools for NASA’s Visualization, Exploration, and Data Analysis (VEDA) platform. VEDA provides an ecosystem of open tools enabling a collaborative science environment, interactive visual storytelling, processing platform, modeling infrastructure, and more, allowing scientists and students alike to discover, transform, update, and improve the quality of earth science data in the pursuit of solving a wide range of environmental and socio-economic issues.

Primary Responsibilities

• Take a primary role in the design and development of scalable, resilient, and secure cloud-native geospatial applications on AWS
• Participate in all aspects of the software development lifecycle from user story generation, through design, development, automated testing, and operational support
• Improve quality by actively participating in code reviews and adhering to team quality standards
• Work alongside other engineers on the team to elevate technology and consistently apply best practices
• Own the technical execution of large, complex features from design through implementation
• Describe and document the details of your work fluidly and accurately for technical peers and non-technical stakeholders
• Think holistically about the application and build with an eye towards long-term maintainability and efficiency
• Collaboratively provide estimates and other input to the client, project managers, designers, or others about features to help determine their feasibility, complexity, cost, and priority level
• Contribute to a culture of positivity, curiosity, and respect for all individuals

This is a full-time, salaried position. Please submit your information, resume and cover letter if you are interested. Remote candidates are considered if located in VA, DC, MD, PA, UT, NJ, TX, MN, FL, NH, OR, OH, IN, AZ, CO, KS, MI, MT, SD, VT, CA, or IL (excluding Chicago).

Qualifications

Here are the guidelines we're looking at to gauge experience and skillset:

Required Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience as a Software Engineer, with a significant focus on geospatial data
• Expertise in building data processing applications and services using Python.
• Strong familiarity with STAC and Cloud-Native geospatial techniques.
• Experience with ipython/jupyter ecosystem
• Experience with cloud-optimized storage formats and technologies
• Experience debugging serialization issues
• Expert-level knowledge and understanding of Amazon Web Services (AWS), including serverless architectures (Lambda, Step Functions), containerization (ECS, EKS), storage (S3), and infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation).
• Deep experience with open-source geospatial technologies and software packages.
• Ability to work as a member of small team using the Scrum methodology
• Firm commitment to and experience with automated testing and continuous integration
• Proponent of continuous improvement; willingness to bring new ideas to the team
• Outstanding all-round communication skills and ability to work collaboratively and proficiently in a remote environment
• Energetic, self-motivated, team player
• Bachelor's Degree in a technical major, such as Computer Science or Engineering (will consider equivalent professional experience in lieu of degree)
• This position requires that applicants be a US Person (US citizen or legal permanent resident) and authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future. All candidates must be able to pass a Federal National Agency Check with Inquires (NACI) screening

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with node.js or python
• Experience working in a development team using an Agile methodology (preferably Scrum or SAFe)
• Experience with the Atlassian tool suite (JIRA, Confluence, Bamboo)
• Experience developing on MacOS X

Additional Information

Paying attention to who we are as a company–people, family members, friends, and colleagues–is our primary focus at Element 84. There are lots of ways to run a company, and, for us, we prioritize wanting to come to work, being around people we enjoy, taking on big things with people you trust, and sharing our achievements as a team.

• You’ll get credit when things go right and we’ll have your back when things go wrong.
• We only take on work that is challenging and right for us. There are projects we will turn down and the team has a say.
• We may be a small company, but we have big company benefits meant to support the idea that we're here for the long term and happiness comes from much more than where you work.
• We have an extraordinary retention rate because we hire extraordinary people. We hope that’s you.

Salary Range for this role: $128,000 to $168,500. Actual compensation offered to candidate will be finalized at offer and may be above or below the posted range due to skill level, experience, industry-specific knowledge, education/certifications, or geographic location. Base salary represents just one component of the Element 84 total compensation package. Employees will also receive a number of benefits as listed below. Other compensation for this position may include bonus eligibility (dependent on employee performance and company profits).

This is a full time, salaried position. Please submit your information, resume and cover letter if you are interested. Remote candidates are considered if located in VA, DC, MD, PA, UT, NJ, TX, MN, FL, NH, OR, OH, IN, AZ, CO, KS, MI, MT, SD, VT, CA, or IL (excluding Chicago).

Benefits Offered

• Competitive medical, dental and vision benefits
• Life Insurance, Short & Long Term disability insurance
• Voluntary Accident, Critical Illness & Hospital Insurance
• 401(k) and Roth 401(k) retirement plans with a fixed 3% of salary employer contributions (paid regardless of employee participation)
• Health savings account with a company contribution
• Flexible spending accounts (medical, dependent care and transportation)
• Company-paid parental leave after one year of employment
• Flexible work schedules
• Paid employee assistance program
• 9 paid holidays
• 4 weeks + 1 day Paid Time Off per calendar year (prorated first year)
• Cell phone stipend

Element 84 is an equal opportunity employer.