We're Blue River, a team of innovators driven to create intelligent machinery that solves monumental problems for our customers. We empower our customers – farmers, construction crews, and foresters - to implement safer and more sustainable solutions, driving increased profitability with less reliance on scarce labor. We believe that focusing on the small stuff – pixel-by-pixel and task-by-task - leads to big gains.
Blue River Technology aligns with John Deere's vision to "innovate on behalf of humanity" by quickly identifying and solving high-value, high-uncertainty challenges in AI, machine learning, computer vision, and robotics. BRT acts as a research and development flywheel, building not only new products but also new platforms that reliably create value for both Deere and its customers. From fully autonomous machines to highly precise farming equipment, BRT and Deere are partnering to create technical breakthroughs in industries like agriculture and construction.
Summary
We are seeking a Principal Software Engineer (Backend / Full Stack) to provide senior technical leadership in building the backend systems, APIs, and developer-facing applications that power our robotics and machine learning platform. This role is focused on application-layer engineering and backend architecture, enabling Machine Learning Engineers, Data Scientists, and Robotics Engineers to build, test, and deploy intelligent systems efficiently at scale.
You will lead the design and development of scalable services and internal tools, working across backend and frontend systems to deliver high-impact solutions. This is a hands-on technical leadership role, where you will set technical direction, mentor senior engineers, and drive complex, cross-functional initiatives. People management is optional and not a core requirement.
- Employment Type: Full-Time
- Work Location: Remote in the United States
- Visa sponsorship will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Job Responsibilities
A combination, not necessarily all-inclusive, of the following:
- Backend Systems & Application Development (Primary Focus)
- Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services and APIs that power robotics and ML workflows.
- Develop developer-facing applications and tools (UI + backend) for model training, evaluation, debugging, and data exploration.
- Own service architecture, performance, scalability, and maintainability across critical systems.
- Translate complex workflows into intuitive, reliable, and high-performing software systems.
- Own and drive technical vision and architecture for backend systems and applications.
- Serve as technical lead for large, cross-functional initiatives.
- Mentor and guide Senior and Staff Engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and architectural decisions.
- Establish engineering best practices for backend development, system design, and code quality.
- Cross-Functional Collaboration
- Partner closely with ML Engineers, Data Scientists, Robotics Engineers, and Product teams.
- Enable faster experimentation and iteration by building robust, user-centric developer tools.
- Clearly communicate technical decisions, tradeoffs, and architecture to stakeholders.
- Platform & Reliability (Supporting, not primary)
- Ensure services are production-ready, observable, and reliable.
- Collaborate with platform and infrastructure teams on deployment, monitoring, and scaling strategies.
- Contribute to data workflows and pipelines where needed to support application use cases.
- Get hands-on to unblock teams and solve complex technical challenges.
- Lead delivery of high-impact initiatives from design through production.
- Apply a customer-first mindset to ensure solutions drive meaningful impact.
Required Experience and Skills
- 12+ years of professional software engineering experience, with demonstrated impact at the Staff or Principal level.
- Strong expertise in backend engineering and distributed systems design.
- Proven experience building scalable APIs and backend services in production environments.
- Experience developing full-stack applications (backend + frontend).
- Strong programming experience in Python (or similar backend languages).
- Experience with modern frontend frameworks (e.g., React).
- Solid understanding of system design, scalability, and performance optimization.
- Experience with databases (e.g., Postgres, MongoDB, or similar).
- Familiarity with cloud environments (AWS or similar).
- Experience working with data-intensive systems or workflows.
- Strong architectural judgment and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent communication and collaboration abilities.
Preferred Experience and Skills
- Experience building systems that support machine learning, computer vision, or robotics workflows.
- Familiarity with ML lifecycle tooling and experimentation workflows.