About the Role
The pipeline team is looking for an experienced Senior Software Engineer to help manage the growing volume of data processed daily. The system handles around 2 billion assets in real time, including License Plate Recognition data, audio clips, and images—excluding raw video. Success requires maintaining low latency, solving scalability challenges, and designing new features to support business growth through robust backend architecture.
Responsibilities
- Complete sprint tasks with initial support and supervision.
- Develop familiarity with the internal data pipeline architecture.
- Engage with teams across functions to understand how they use the pipeline.
- Share questions and insights publicly to promote team-wide learning.
- Progress toward independent problem-solving by proposing solutions rather than seeking step-by-step direction.
- Gain a broad understanding of active feature development areas.
- Learn the core software design principles guiding system development.
- Navigate the codebase confidently and efficiently.
- Actively participate in technical discussions to improve decision quality.
- Support the core functions of each pipeline service.
- Identify 3 to 5 potential risks related to stability, features, or development processes.
- Take ownership of complex and ambiguous engineering tasks with minimal oversight and clear communication.
- Coordinate with multiple teams to resolve technical challenges quickly.
- Suggest improvements for building adaptable and forward-looking software systems.
- Present a recent project during a company-wide engineering demo event.
Work Arrangement
Hybrid — Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Austin
The Opportunity
The pipeline team is seeking a seasoned Senior Software Engineer to bolster our efforts to accommodate the rapid expansion of our workload. Flock is continuing to expand to more customers and with that comes more data. Today, Flock processes around 2 billion assets daily in real time (including License Plate Recognition data, audio clips, and images—no raw video). For Flock to keep momentum, we need to keep the pipeline latency low, handle massive asset volumes, solve scalability issues and build new features that support the business. This role centers on data processing and architectural design within a high-scale backend ecosystem.
90 Days at Flock
We prescribe to 90 day plans and believe that good days lead to good weeks, which lead to good months. This serves as a preview of the 90 day plan you will receive if you were to be hired in this role at Flock. The First 30 Days • Understand current processes and procedures. • Work on small tasks for the sprint with support. • Work towards understanding how the pipeline at Flock works. • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to gain context on how they leverage the pipeline. • Ask questions in a public way to spread knowledge (e.g., public Slack channels). The First 60 Days • Ability to perform the role with decreased need for guidance: Come up with options and solutions instead of asking “what should I do?”. • High-level understanding of the features we are working on. • Understand the software design philosophies being used. • Be comfortable navigating through the code base. • Engaged during technical conversations to increase the quality of input. 90 Days & Beyond • Able to contribute to each of the pipeline services’ purpose. • Have 3-5 ideas of where you see risk (stability, features, process, etc.). • Ability to perform role with little guidance with transparency, taking on larger size and more ambiguous engineering tasks. • Communicating across multiple teams to solve problems efficiently. • Contributing ideas for how we build better software with foresight and flexibility. • Participate in software engineering demo day by presenting a topic that you worked on in the last few months.
Other
- Applicants must meet all FBI CJIS Security Policy requirements, including a fingerprint-based background check.
- Ability to obtain and maintain Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) certification as a condition of employment.
