Backend Software Engineer, Observability

As a Backend Software Engineer focused on Observability at Astronomer, your key responsibilities include designing and implementing Astro Observe, collaborating with cross-functional teams to define user requirements, and iterating on observability and governance features that enhance visibility in data pipelines. Your contributions will significantly impact the overall usability, reliability, and scalability of our platform, playing a pivotal role in meeting customer needs.

To excel as a Backend Software Engineer in Observability at Astronomer, you should possess an eagerness to learn, experience with Golang and Python, and strong communication skills. Candidates typically have 1-5 years of engineering experience, preferably in fast-paced startup environments, along with a solid understanding of software development best practices, including code reviews, CI/CD, and agile methodologies.

Astronomer values diverse experiences and unconventional career paths, which means as a Backend Software Engineer in Observability, you’ll find ample opportunities for mentorship and personal growth. The dynamic environment encourages innovation, allowing you to expand your technical skills while collaborating with a high-performing team dedicated to shaping the future of data observability.

Astro Observe is a critical component of Astronomer's expansion strategy and is central to the responsibilities of the Backend Software Engineer in Observability. You will contribute to the product's design and implementation, ensuring it delivers exceptional value by allowing customers to gain visibility and actionable insights into their data processing pipelines.

The estimated salary for the Backend Software Engineer, Observability position at Astronomer ranges between CA$130,000 - CA$150,000, depending on your experience and location. This range, coupled with an equity component and comprehensive benefits, reflects our commitment to attracting and retaining top talent in the tech industry.

When discussing your experience with Golang and Python for the Backend Software Engineer role at Astronomer, ensure you highlight specific projects where you successfully utilized these languages. Mention any frameworks or libraries you've worked with, challenges you overcame, and how you applied best coding practices to deliver high-quality deliverables.

To answer this effectively, emphasize your approach to collaborating with stakeholders to gather feedback, your strategies for testing features thoroughly before release, and how you continuously monitor and iterate on features post-launch to improve usability and reliability.

Talk about any hands-on experience you have with Apache Airflow, highlighting specific workflows you've developed. Discuss how you've utilized it to enhance data pipelines and manage dependencies between different tasks, showcasing your understanding of orchestration within a dataOps context.

In your response, mention how you prioritize tasks, maintain communication with team members, and adapt to rapidly changing requirements, all of which are critical in a startup. Give examples of challenges you've faced and how you navigated them successfully.

It’s important to explain how CI/CD practices improve software development workflows. Share your experience in setting up CI/CD pipelines, tools you’ve used, and how you've implemented automated testing and deployment to foster efficiency and reliability in software releases.

Use this opportunity to showcase your problem-solving skills. Identify a specific bug, walk through your thought process in diagnosing the issue, and explain the steps you took to resolve it, emphasizing collaboration with your team and any strategies employed, such as debugging techniques.

Explain your process for engaging with users to elicit their needs, including techniques such as interviews, surveys, and direct feedback sessions. Emphasize the importance of involving different stakeholders throughout the development cycle to ensure the features truly address user concerns.

Share your philosophy on code reviews, emphasizing collaboration and constructive feedback. Discuss how you approach reviews as learning opportunities and address ways you ensure clarity and thoroughness in the review process to enhance team learning and maintain code quality.

Mention resources like online courses, podcasts, or tech blogs you follow, and explain how you engage with the tech community, whether through events, meetups, or forums. This shows your commitment to lifelong learning and adapting to industry advancements relevant to your role at Astronomer.

Explain your understanding of diversity and inclusion, and provide examples of how you actively support an inclusive workplace. This could involve advocating for diverse hiring practices, creating an environment that values different perspectives, or participating in initiatives aimed at fostering diversity.