Principal Platform Engineer, Blue River Technology
$174-305k
+ Bonus
More information about location
Agriculture machinery company
Open for applications
Agriculture machinery company
201-500 employees
Open for applications
$174-305k
+ Bonus
More information about location
201-500 employees
Company mission
To create intelligent machinery that solves monumental challenges for our customers.
Role
Who you are
- 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with demonstrated impact at the Staff or Principal Engineer level
- Proven experience serving as a technical lead for senior engineers on complex, distributed systems
- Strong background in building data platforms, internal tooling, or developer platforms
- Expertise in designing and operating APIs and distributed systems at scale
- Hands-on experience with:
- Python, React
- Databricks / Spark
- Databases: Postgres, MongoDB
- Cloud: AWS
- Orchestration: Airflow or similar
- Infrastructure as Code: Terraform / Terragrunt
- Observability: Prometheus / Grafana
- Strong system design skills and architectural judgment
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills
- If you’re excited about this role but your experience doesn’t align completely with the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway
Desirable
- Experience supporting machine learning, computer vision, or robotics workflows
- Familiarity with ML lifecycle tooling
- Experience working with robotics or autonomous systems data
- Experience with C++, particularly in performance-critical systems or robotics-adjacent components
- Strong instincts for developer experience (DX)
- Experience influencing technical direction across multiple teams
- Prior people management experience (optional)
What the job involves
- We are seeking a Principal Engineer to provide senior technical leadership for our CVML and Robotics Data Platform, with a strong focus on data enablement across the robotics development lifecycle
- This role is responsible for building and evolving APIs, applications, pipelines, and visualizations that enable Machine Learning Engineers (MLEs), Data Scientists (DS), and other personas involved in robotics development to work efficiently at scale
- This is a hands-on technical leadership role
- The Principal Engineer will act as a technical lead and mentor for Senior and Staff Engineers, set technical direction, and drive execution on complex, cross-cutting initiatives
- People management is optional and not a core requirement of the role
- Own and drive the technical vision, architecture, and standards for data enablement within the CVML and robotics platform
- Serve as technical lead for major initiatives, guiding design, implementation, and delivery
- Mentor and coach Senior and Staff Engineers from a technical standpoint through design reviews, code reviews, and architectural guidance
- Design, build, and maintain scalable APIs and backend services exposing robotics, sensor, simulation, and ML lifecycle data
- Lead development of developer-facing applications and visualizations supporting model training, evaluation, debugging, and deployment workflows
- Architect, build, and operate data pipelines and workflows
- Define and implement infrastructure-as-code with Terraform and Terragrunt
- Establish and evolve observability standards using Prometheus and Grafana
- Partner closely with MLEs, Data Scientists, Robotics Engineers, and Product to translate workflows into robust platform capabilities
- Get hands-on to unblock teams, resolve complex technical challenges, and lead response to high-priority incidents
- Clearly communicate technical decisions, tradeoffs, and architectural rationale to engineering and leadership stakeholders
- Applies a customer-first approach to platform design, ensuring solutions solve meaningful customer problems at scale
Our take
The global farming market is rigorously growing to keep up with demand. Blue River Technology is a farming equipment maker using computer vision, machine learning, robotics and product management to develop machines that optimize chemical usage and reimagining routine processes within farming.
Acquired by one of the largest names in agriculture - John Deere - Blue River commits to remaining independent in ways of working and culture. The company is also stepping into new-world territory working with AI to combat invasive weeds and other large-scale farming issues.
It’s impressive what has been developed by Blue River Technology for an industry that is so heavily relied upon, yet has been slower to digitize. It will be exciting to see how the company develops its idea of autonomous farming into the future picture of the industry.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
15% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Dec 2015
$17m
SERIES B
Mar 2014
$10m
SERIES A
Total funding: $30.1m
Company HQ
Santa Clara, CA
Leadership
Willy Pell
(CEO)Willy joined Blue River Technology in 2012 as a Senior Director of Autonomous Systems, they then became the VP of Autonomy and New Ventures in 2021 and CEO in 2023.
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