Staff Developer

Staff Developer

Chennai, India

About the Job:

As a Staff Developer, your mission is to drive outcomes across Vendasta's engineering teams, solving complex technical and organizational challenges. You are responsible for architecting large-scale, sustainable solutions and influencing the strategic direction of the engineering department. Each step up the ladder means caring about an additional layer of abstraction, without losing focus on the foundational layers beneath it.

This role extends beyond your immediate team to have a broad organizational impact, as you scope and seek solutions for open-ended problems, ensuring alignment with long-term goals. Your role is a balance of technical leadership, mentorship, and cultural stewardship, setting an example for engineers to follow while building an inclusive and high-performance environment.

You act as a thought leader, not only solving critical technical issues but also fostering a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration within R&D. You anticipate future growth areas, unblock teams, and take ownership of decisions that shape the direction of Vendastas platform.

Leadership

Your Impact:

• Leadership: A Staff Developer is a leader across multiple teams and projects, providing strategic technical direction and promoting best practices. Their leadership extends across the organization, influencing not just their team, but the entire engineering division.
• Serve as the go-to technical leader across multiple teams, representing engineering interests and ensuring alignment with business goals.
• Lead by example, being aware of your influence on others and setting the tone for positive engineering culture.
• Act as a steward for technical excellence by driving the adoption of best practices and setting high-quality standards for engineering efforts.
• Proactively identify long-term technical challenges and opportunities, ensuring the team is focused on sustainable solutions.
• Advocate for the well-being and development of your team members, collaborating with Engineering Managers to support onboarding, mentoring, and career growth.
• Strategic Planning
• A Staff Developer plays a key role in setting the technical vision for large-scale projects, aligning teams towards long-term goals, and ensuring continuous value delivery.
• Translate high-level business goals into actionable technical strategies, ensuring alignment with the companys broader objectives.
• Distill complex, ambiguous problems into clear technical roadmaps, enabling teams to execute effectively.
• Participate in high-level planning sessions, shaping the future direction of the organization and ensuring cross-team collaboration.
• Ensure work is executable by creating clear, feasible requirements, and guiding teams to achieve technical clarity.
• Act as the engineering voice in planning discussions, providing strategic input on timelines, technical challenges, and resource allocation.
• Execution
• A Staff Developer is deeply involved in the execution of technical initiatives, ensuring that teams are empowered to deliver high-quality outcomes.
• You unblock teams and support them in overcoming technical challenges.
• Own the delivery of high-priority projects, ensuring they meet technical quality standards and align with business objectives.
• Resolve technical blockers across multiple teams, providing guidance that elevates the teams technical capabilities.
• Actively participate in technical discussions, reviews, and problem-solving, ensuring your team is continuously improving.
• Balance delegation and hands-on technical work to ensure that your team remains empowered while maintaining your own technical edge.
• Advocate for continuous delivery and improvement, driving team velocity and maintaining a culture of accountability.
• Impact and Decision-Making
• A Staff Developer has a broad impact across the organization, influencing key decisions that shape Vendastas technical strategy and future direction.
• Weigh the pros and cons of conflicting perspectives to make thoughtful, strategic decisions in critical situations.
• Lead decision-making processes that ensure long-term success, even if the decisions are unpopular.
• Encourage diverse perspectives and foster productive debates to achieve the best possible outcomes for the company.
• Take ownership of your decisions and mistakes, learning from them and sharing your insights with the broader team.
• Culture Stewardship
• A Staff Developer plays a crucial role in shaping and maintaining Vendastas engineering culture. You act as a role model for other developers, promoting inclusivity, high performance, and continuous learning.
• Lead by example, fostering an inclusive environment that encourages open communication, empathy, and respect for diverse opinions.
• Empower developers by supporting their growth and celebrating their contributions to the team.
• Champion community-building efforts, such as mentoring, tech talks, and engineering demos, to spread knowledge and improve collaboration across the organization.
• Partner with engineering leadership to create a culture of high performance and continuous improvement.
• Contribute back to the wider organization through knowledge-sharing initiatives, such as writing blog posts, speaking at events, or contributing to Vendastas open-source projects.
• Technical Craft and Design
• A Staff Developer is expected to design and implement flexible, scalable solutions that meet high standards of maintainability, simplicity, and performance.
• Design complex software systems that are easy to use and difficult to misuse, focusing on modularity and simplicity.
• Reduce the complexity of large-scale problems by selecting the right data structures, algorithms, and design patterns.
• Review designs across teams, providing high-quality feedback to ensure technical alignment and architectural integrity.
• Proactively address technical debt and establish frameworks for others to follow, improving overall code quality.
• Contribution to the Organization and Community
• A Staff Developer is expected to contribute back to the organization and wider technical community. These contributions may not always be tied to immediate project work, but they play a vital role in maintaining a healthy engineering culture.
• Lead or actively participate in Vendastas communities of practice, contributing to shared learnings and innovation.
• Explore and experiment with new technologies, methodologies, or patterns that could benefit the organizations growth.
• Engage with external technical communities by speaking at local events, writing technical blogs, or representing Vendasta at conferences.
• Contribute to Vendasta’s shared libraries, open-source projects, or internal tooling, enhancing the organization’s technology ecosystem.

What you bring to the table:

• Technical Leadership: Successful delivery of large-scale projects and the adoption of high-quality technical standards across teams.
• Team Growth: Evidence of mentoring, career development, and technical empowerment within your teams.
• Strategic Impact: Long-term influence on Vendasta’s technology stack, process improvements, and alignment with business goals.
• Cultural Contributions: Active participation in fostering a high-performance culture through mentorship, inclusion, and community-building efforts.
• Cross-Organizational Influence: Significant contributions that unblock or accelerate progress across multiple teams or departments.
• 12+ years of experience in Full Stack Development with deep knowledge of both frontend and backend systems.
• Proven track record in Solution Architecture/Technical Architecture, with expertise in designing scalable, high-performing systems.
• Experience in leading and managing engineering teams, with a focus on mentorship, and team development on the technical aspects.
• Hands-on expertise with modern web technologies such as JavaScript (React, Angular),Golang or Java and databases (SQL/NoSQL).
• Solid understanding of database technologies, including SQL and NoSQL.
• Experience with cloud platforms (e.g. GCP, AWS and Azure) and DevOps practices.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams.
• Proven experience in Agile methodologies and CI/CD pipelines.

Perks:

• Benefits: health insurance
• Paid time off
• Training & Career Development: Professional development plans, leadership workshops, mentorship programs, and more!
• Free Snacks, hot beverages, and catered lunches on Fridays
• Culture - comprised of our core values: Drive, Innovation, Respect, and Agility
• Night Shift Premium
• Stock options
• Provident Fund