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Senior Software Engineer

MLW LogoMost Loved Workplace® Certified Job
92% of candidates apply because they are a Most Loved Workplace®
San Francisco
Engineering
FullTime

About the Role

At Sofar Ocean, a Most Loved Workplace® certified employer in the Climate Tech space, Connecting the world's oceans to power a sustainable future through real-time ocean intelligence..

The Role You will be a key contributor to frontend and backend engineering on cloud software systems on the Spotter team, which is a highly cross-functional group that designs our sensing systems and the applications that connect them. You’ll work alongside other software engineers and collaborate directly with hardware and firmware engineers to build features in applications like spotter.sofarocean.com and APIs (see docs.sofarocean.com ) that interact with our hardware products: Spotter, Smart Mooring, next generation platforms, and Sofar’s open hardware connectivity stack Bristlemouth www.bristlemouth.org . You thrive in small and collaborative multidisciplinary teams, and love learning something new and surprising every day. You strive for the shared success of improving the health of our oceans and planet by shipping a cohesive, performant and impactful product. You’re a full-stack engineer with experience developing frontend and backend elements of modern web applications. Our tech stack includes React on the frontend with backend APIs written using Typescript, Express, and Postgres. You will own features across the stack and should be comfortable architecting solutions from the data storage layer to UIs. This role will be working onsite at our Pier 28 office at least 3 days per week and reporting to our Senior Engineering Manager. Recent Team Stories We had a particular user account with rapidly increasing numbers of deployed hydrophones, reporting data more and more frequently, with many users concurrently opening the dashboard that displays complex visualizations of this real-time streaming dynamic data, so that the load on the backend system was compounding exponentially. We’re proud of some intense, fun, and successful performance testing work we did, with solutions that spanned React component data invalidation, multiple layers of caching, database index optimization, and remotely configurable thresholds on the hardware systems. We're currently automating some processes for configuring and updating a wide range of remote hardware devices in order to make it easier for users to manage their systems safely without contacting support. One part of the challenge is documenting the giant unwritten decision tree that has only ever been performed by our very smart and deeply knowledgeable colleagues. We all continue to surprise each other by bringing up yet another caveat or edge case that we have to account for in software. Fun Stuff Gorgeous Pier 28 office where we test systems in San Francisco Bay Lunch provided 3 days a week Comprehensive health, dental, and vision insurance Flexible PTO, plus one company-wide office closure week About You Passionate about building a product with a positive impact on the world Product engineer mindset with deep customer empathy and strong opinions Comfortable owning a feature end-to-end with minimal spec A clear and empathetic communicator who enjoys collaborating with other engineers, designers, product managers, and scientists Rapidly acquire new technical skills and knowledge in a fast-paced, high-delivery environment Mentor others in an open, respectful, empathetic manner, including through thoughtful code reviews Excited to join a 100-person growing startup Minimum Job Qualifications 5+ years of professional software development experience in modern cloud environments Significant professional experience with Typescript, React, & Postgres Owned the full lifecycle of features from conception and architecture, through development and testing, release with CI/CD, monitoring and alerting, to maintenance and optimization Bonus Points You love the ocean and have a connection to it that you could strengthen by joining Sofar Significant expertise with deployments spanning several AWS services like ECS, ALB, CloudFront, RDS, ElastiCache, Lambda, IAM, and more Complex data visualization experience (circular wave energy, hydrophone spectrogram) Acoustics expertise or knowledge about sonic propagation in dynamic ocean environments Have worked directly with hardware or firmware colleagues Estimated Salary Range $140,000-$179,000 + stock options The range listed is what we reasonably expect to pay for this role at the time of this posting. We may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range and may be modified in the future. Actual compensation packages are based on several factors that are unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, experience, and equity package.

Want to learn more about what it's like to work at Sofar Ocean? View our full profile.

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Why This Is a Most Loved Workplace® Certified Job

What It's Like to Work Here

Waves Ocean-Centric Decision Making
Users Genuine Collaboration Across Teams
Lightbulb Innovation Through Experimentation
Heart Authentic Care for People
Target Purpose-Driven Clarity
Compass Transparency and Psychological Safety
Certified for: Most Loved Workplace Most Loved Workplaces® 2026, Most Loved Workplace Most Loved Workplaces® 2025

Frequently Asked Questions About Working at Sofar Ocean

Common questions candidates ask about this role and Sofar Ocean's workplace

Sofar is on a mission to connect the world’s oceans. We design, build, and deploy the largest privately owned network of marine weather sensors to power the world’s best marine weather forecasts. Our data helps our customers to increase efficiency and reduce emissions, delivering tools to governments and other stakeholders to understand impacts of climate change on extreme weather and ocean health. We live on Planet Ocean, and our goal is to create the ocean intelligence needed to ensure a sustainable future.

Please review the specific job listing or contact Sofar Ocean's recruiting team for details on remote or hybrid work options for this role.

Salary information may vary by role and location. Please check the specific job listing or discuss compensation during the interview process.

Sofar Ocean is an established organization in its industry. The company is a certified Most Loved Workplace®, highlighting a strong, positive culture and committed workforce.

Key benefit categories include: Employees, Life & Family, Professional Development, Wellness & Community. You can view more details on their CertCheck profile.

The day-to-day environment is guided by core values such as Ocean-Centric Decision Making and Genuine Collaboration Across Teams and Innovation Through Experimentation.

The company has committed to inclusive practices including: Oceans First Culture and Collaborative Team Excellence.

They have earned Most Loved Workplace® certifications including: Most Loved Workplace Most Loved Workplaces® 2026 and Most Loved Workplace Most Loved Workplaces® 2025.

Sofar Ocean currently has 9 open positions. They are hiring across departments like Engineering, Marketing, Sales. You can view all current openings at certcheck.mostlovedworkplace.com/companies/sofar-ocean/jobs.

The interview process typically involves an initial recruiter screen followed by team interviews. Please contact Sofar Ocean's recruiting team for specific details on this role's process.

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