Sr. Technical Lead Engineer - remote

Who We Are: RAIN is a digital consultancy who is the preeminent leader in Voice and Conversational AI. We help clients navigate voice technology. We combine strategy, technology, and creativity to drive growth for our clients and use data-driven insight to design and implement voice ecosystems to help leverage a shifting technology landscape into a competitive edge. We’re guided by the belief that technology is, by definition, an extension of humanity, and that great ideas come from a desire to enhance the lives of real people.

At RAIN, we want to work with people of different backgrounds who come from different paths in life. We want individuals who can bring diverse perspectives and experiences to our culture and company. We believe that transparency builds trust, so we default to disclosure in our communications. We believe in a safe, welcoming, and inclusive environment.

Restless &Ready. These are the two attributes that mark the talent thriving at RAIN. We look for people who don’t fit the traditional mold, with skill sets you don’t often see in agencies and consultancies. Said differently, we’re always keen to add more unicorns to the stable. We look for people motivated by big ideas and determined enough to make it a reality.

If this sounds like you and you love technology, read on…

About the Role: We are looking for a Sr. Technical Lead Engineer within our team to provide valuable leadership in and outside of projects. They not only help guide and direct the work efforts on projects but can help shape the direction of our department, have a major influence on our profitability and company direction in meaningful ways.

We are looking for a highly passionate and hands-on Sr Technical Lead to work with our remote team. You will report directly into RAIN’s Director of Technology and collaborate with company leadership on development decisions for our clients. You will serve as a key member of the leadership team to set and execute high-level engineering strategy. This position requires exceptional programming ability, strong engineering management experience with a track record of leading engineers and the ability to make smart technical decisions in a fast-paced environment.

The candidate should be a transformative, innovative leader who is a proven catalyst for change. They should also be astoundingly exceptional when talking to clients and making them feel comfortable.

Who You Are: A Sr Technical Lead Engineer who, as a project lead:

• Can work with RAIN’s strategy, UX/VX, and creative teams;interact with clients, exploring and advising technological possibilities, discovering solutions that fit their goals.
• Can architect solutions, based on customer specific requirements and use cases, and own their implementation by taking ownership and ensuring the solutions are deployed and fit for purpose.
• Specialize in voice assistants and be extremely knowledgeable about voice technology and provide passion towards creating an integrated solution to become the primary UI for voice-enabled applications.
• Is reflective about the things that they do, evaluating their successes and failures when approaching problems with intellectual honesty.
• Understands that there is a spectrum of strengths and weaknesses (they are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses) and can build project plans and code which plays to their own strengths whenever possible.
• Thinks in terms of “context” when applying theory. They understand that there is no “Right Way” to build software, and that the only way to build good software is by adapting theory to fit the needs of the client, codebase, team, tools, and organization.
• Is aware of how their organization and their clients' work, what their values are, and what is both important and not important for success. When a ball is dropped within the team, they will do what they can to pick it up. The phrase “this is not my job” is never, ever said in those situations.
• Can break a project down into logical streams of work like milestones or sprints and is familiar with the merits and drawbacks of waterfall and agile development (both Kanban and SCRUM).

A Sr Technical Lead Engineer who, as an individual contributor:

• Completes hands-on development work and remove roadblocks as part of the client engagements
• Can speak to examples of solutions (both single pieces of code and systems) they have both under, and over designed, and the pros and cons of each.
• Writes clean, structured code with change and reuse in mind. Is obsessed with simplicity but loves complex problems.
• Discovers and implement new technologies that yield competitive advantage
• Understands that everything in our field involves tradeoff, and will look for what that is for design patterns, libraries, frameworks, and processes.
• Understands that their job is to provide solutions to problems, not write code. Because of that, they will always think of what they are doing in terms of how much value it brings to their organization vs how much effort they are putting in.
• Will take a step back and question when systems fail or are harder than expected, interrogating what is breaking down and will evaluate the cost of fixing root problems, and either fix them directly, or put things in motion so they will be fixed eventually.

What You’ll Bring: A Sr Technical Lead Engineer is someone who:

• Has at least 5 years as a lead developer in a team setting, with at least 12 years of development experience overall
• Experience with NodeJS and Python necessary, but has experience across the full stack
• Bachelor’s degree (in Computer Science or Engineering preferred)
• Familiarity with Natural Language Processing, at least in terms of available Cloud APIs (Ie: Amazon Lex, Amazon Alexa APIs, Google's Text to Speech, etc)
• Experience with containerized deployment and development environments across AWS and GCP with some Azure understanding
• Understanding how concepts like SLAs and contracts within software development teams work
• Understand emerging web development models and major trends within the software development community
• Experience with high scalability projects involving cloud-based infrastructure design and implementation
• Successful track record of developing quality software products and shipping production ready software
• Good understanding of REST-ful API design patterns
• Understanding of data models and an understanding for how data should be modeled for performance
• Experience writing SQL queries for SQL Server or another Relational Database
• Design, develop and implement unit and scenario testing for existing code base and for new functionality under development
• Has mentored junior software developers on design patterns, development best practices and DevOps trade-offs
• Experience with Scrum/Agile development methodologies
• Understanding of architecture patterns such as Domain Driven Design or MVC architecture
• Excellent use of both version control softwares such as GIT and patterns and practices around development workflow and branching strategy patterns
• Performance and Security minded
• Must have strong communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills
• Demonstrated ability to influence technical and non-technical audiences including those at the senior leadership level
• Able to meet deadlines, define timetables, balance multiple priorities, and manage parallel projects to completion in a test-driven collaborative and iterative programming environment
• Ability to develop product user stories and estimate development costs

How You Will Be Successful: In order for someone in this role to be successful, they must be someone who is both a self starter and self aware, equally capable technically as with working in teams. They must be comfortable with ambiguity and know when to lean in and find a direction to go. While not every senior developer desires to be a leader, the soft skills, knowledge of trends in software development (their pros and cons) and design patterns are just as important as their hard skills in development. Most importantly, you must someone who balances well knowing which moments require them total control and guide and direct a stream of work and when to ask questions and find avenues to learn what is necessary to get the job done. You will be surrounded by an amazing team.

How We'll Define Success in This Role: Directly, you will be measured by your ability to design systems that meet the client needs, while delivering them on time and budget. Doing so allows us to win more work with our clients, more success in our field and grow our teams. You directly influence the quality of the code you touch and the projects you are on. Indirectly, you influence the profitability and output of the company by bringing to the table solutions to both the technical and human or process components of an engineering team.

Our office is located in the Flatiron District in NYC with remote team members across the country. Currently, we all are working remotely and will be flexible for the future.

What We Offer: We genuinely care about our employees’ happiness and engagement.

• Comprehensive Benefits Package: Health, Dental, Vision, and Health Savings Account (HSA).
• Generous Paid Time Off that increases with tenure and seniority.
• Mental Health/Wellness perks. Including 2 RAIN Check Days- for those days when you just need to take a rain check from work, we get it.
• Volunteer Days.
• 401k plan with employer contribution.
• Short/Long Term Disability.
• Fully stocked kitchen (when in the office).
• Commuter subsidy.
• Challenging problems to solve and an awesome team to collaborate with every single day.
• Work culture focused on innovation and creation of lasting value for our clients and employees.
• Salary will be evaluated commensurate with experience and location. This role will be eligible for a year-end discretionary incentive award.

Note to Recruiters and Placement Agencies: We do not accept unsolicited agency resumes.

RAIN is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to fair and equitable hiring practices. All hiring decisions at RAIN are based on strategic business needs, job requirements, and individual qualifications. All candidates are considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexuality, national origin, age, disability, genetics, or any other protected status.