Senior Software Engineer - Cloud (Backend & Distributed Systems)
5 days ago
Des Moines
Job Description About Vertex Vertex is a high-growth enterprise software company powering real-time, cloud-native 3D applications for the worlds most advanced manufacturers. Our platform enables Fortune 500 industrial and defense-adjacent organizations to deploy scalable, highly performant 3D-enabled workflows in secure AWS environments, including GovCloud. We operate at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, enterprise engineering systems, and mission-critical deployments. As Vertex scales and expands into complex enterprise programs, operational excellence and deployment reliability are critical to our success. The Role Vertex is seeking a Senior Software Engineer Cloud to design and evolve the core backend services powering our enterprise 3D collaboration platform. You will: • Architect and scale distributed cloud services that support mission-critical enterprise deployments, • Lead scalable and optimized backend design decisions across APIs, data stores, messaging systems, and microservices, • Drive engineering quality, observability, and reliability standards, • Contribute to long-term platform evolution, not just short-term deliveryThis role is ideal for an experienced backend engineer who thinks in systems, understands the trade-offs of distributed architecture, and takes ownership of platform performance and reliability in production AWS environments. Reporting Structure • Reports to: VP of Product & EngineeringWhat You Will Own, • Architect, design, and implement scalable backend services supporting high-volume API consumers and enterprise workloads, • Lead evolution of our cloud-native platform architecture across compute, storage, messaging, and observability layers, • Drive performance optimization across services, APIs, and data stores, • Ensure services are production-grade, fault-tolerant, and observable, • Contribute to infrastructure design decisions in partnership with DevOps and platform engineers, • Balance performance, cost, scalability, and maintainability in architectural decisions, • Establish and enforce strong testing practices, including automation and integration coverage, • Participate in technical design reviews and provide thoughtful, high-quality code reviews, • Proactively identify architectural risks and propose durable solutionsWhat You Need to Succeed, • 5+ years of experience building SaaS products in cloud-native, microservices-based architectures, • Strong backend development experience in Scala, Java, or similar JVM-based technologies, • Experience designing and operating distributed systems in production, • Hands-on experience with AWS or Azure production environments, • Deep understanding of REST API design, performance optimization, and developer experience, • Experience working with containerized workloads (Docker), • Strong understanding of data modeling, database interactions, and scalability patterns, • Experience managing mission-critical or sensitive production systems, • Familiarity with observability best practices (metrics, logging, tracing), • Strong architectural judgment and ability to reason about tradeoffs, • Excellent written and verbal communication skills in a remote environment, • Experience working remotely as part of a distributed teamWhat Will Set You Apart, • Background architecting enterprise B2B SaaS platforms, • Direct exposure to GovCloud or regulated environments (SOC2, FedRAMP, CMMC), • Experience building distributed systems using Akka (actors, clustering, persistence, or streams), • Familiarity with event-driven systems and streaming architectures (e.g.,Kafka / MSK, SNS/SQS), • Proficiency with Infrastructure as Code (CDK / CloudFormation), • Demonstrated ability to optimize large-scale API ecosystems, • Experience implementing frontend/full stack web applications leveraging modern frameworks and patterns, • Familiarity with 3D visualization, CAD, PLM, or industrial systems, • Experience improving developer experience for external API consumers, • Working knowledge of instrumentation and telemetry patterns targeting Datadog, New Relic, etc.Our Technology Stack, • AWS-native architecture (Fargate, S3, MSK, RDS, Postgres, Redis, Elasticsearch), • Infrastructure as Code (CDK / CloudFormation), • Containerized services (Docker), • Observability via Datadog and CloudWatch, • Backend services in Java, Scala, Python, Node, C++, • Frontend SDKs in TypeScript, React, NextJS, VueJSWhy This Role MattersAs Vertex expands into larger enterprise and defense-adjacent programs, backend platform reliability and performance become foundational. This role ensures: • Scalable architecture that supports enterprise-grade deployments, • Durable API design across diverse integration environments, • Performance optimization across real-time collaboration workloads, • Reduced operational risk through strong engineering discipline, • A backend platform that can scale with Vertexs growthThis is a high-impact role for an engineer who wants architectural influence, production ownership, and the opportunity to shape the long-term evolution of a growing cloud platform. LocationThis position is 100% remote (United States) Why Join Vertex • High-margin, rapidly growing enterprise SaaS company, • Meaningful technical ownership, • Flexible remote culture, • Competitive compensation and benefits Vertex Software is an equal-opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. *Vertex does not sponsor employees requiring a work visa at this time This is a remote position.