Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer

Job Summary

Are you a software engineering technical leader looking to drive the performance and scale for market leading SAAS products? Join us as we turn vision into reality! The ideal candidate is passionate about providing software engineering solutions applied to performance engineering delivery where business outcomes are our playground.

About Us

At Vertex, we build the technology that keeps global commerce moving. Every transaction, every return, every compliance calculation—our systems are trusted by thousands of the world’s most complex businesses. As we scale our SaaS platform and products, we’re engineering for extreme performance, precision, and resilience across diverse customer workloads. We are investing deeply in AI‑driven engineering, using intelligent automation, advanced LLMs, and performant architectures to transform how our products are built and operated. Engineers here don’t just write features—they solve high‑leverage systems problems, model and optimize performance at scale, and design automation that becomes force multipliers for entire value streams.

Our teams are collaborative, curious, and serious about their craft. We value people who take ownership, push boundaries, and elevate those around them. We foster an environment where engineers can stretch, lead, and continuously deepen their expertise—whether in distributed systems, performance engineering, or cutting‑edge AI. If you’re driven to build systems that truly scale, to solve meaningful engineering challenges, and to grow your career while shaping the future of intelligent performance automation, you’ll thrive here.

Key Responsibilities

• Technical Leadership: Apply software and performance engineering practices to architecture, and technology choices that lead to high performing, scalable solutions. Lead and mentor junior engineers, guide technical design and architecture discussions with a performance by design approach.

• Build Transformative AI Solutions: Drive tangible outcomes through hands-on implementation for the end-to-end technical delivery of performance engineering AI solutions by creating or leveraging data for ingestion by LLMs with NLP APIs to accelerate performance testing and delivery outcomes.

• Accountability: Take primary ownership of designing, developing, and personally implementing high-quality performance engineering solutions. A significant part of this will involve architecting and deploying complex AI and Large Language Model (LLM) based intelligent agents and automated workflows, all built to deliver automation and performance engineering outcomes.

• Become a Trusted Strategic Partner: Embed yourself deeply with value stream engineering teams to truly grasp their performance needs, challenges and strategic product goals. You'll translate these nuanced needs into clear, actionable technical performance goals and solution designs, building strong relationships as their primary performance advisor and leading performance discussions and optimizing features.

• Proactively Remove Technical Blockers: Identify, analyze, and directly resolve complex technical performance challenges during all phases of release delivery, from planning, design, to sophisticated performance test automation and advanced agent orchestration. You'll be the ultimate go-to expert for driving value stream product performance.

• Development: Design, code (hands-on), and maintain (proactive monitoring, troubleshooting) software solutions using object-oriented or modern languages (C#, Java, Go etc.)

• Test: Create test scenarios and design, develop, and execute corresponding automated tests.

• Cloud Infrastructure: Experience with major cloud providers like AWS, Azure or GCP. Understanding of Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform, CloudFormation, Helm etc.)

• Collaboration: Excel in global cross-functional teams, including product management, senior leaders, engineering and architecture.

• Code Reviews: Utilize code reviews to ensure code quality, performance and maintainability, as well as mentoring opportunities.

• Continuous Improvement: Champion a culture of continuous improvement by driving engineering excellence, conducting root cause analyses, and implementing feedback loops to enhance code quality, team productivity, and system reliability.

Qualifications

• Education: Master’s degree (preferred) or bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, or a related field (or equivalent experience).

• Experience: 8 - 10 years in a combination of software and performance engineering, with at least 3 years in Cloud Native SaaS applications and preferably 2-3 years mentoring and coaching engineers in a leadership role.

• Experience working on AI/ML initiatives or certifications in AI technologies is a strong plus.

• Knowledge of queueing theory and performance models (USL, Little’s Law, Amdahl’s Law) a plus.

Technical Skills

• Experience in object-oriented/modern languages (C#, Java, Go etc.)

• Proven ability to lead technical engagements, mentor junior team members, and oversee technical aspects of projects

• Proven ability to implement and drive performance test methodologies, principles, patterns, and practices across multiple parallel initiatives

• Demonstrated accountability, a "get-things-done" attitude, and a focus on fast, impactful delivery, with a proven ability to lead technical initiatives

• Proficient in RESTful API, Open API design and development, and database technologies (RDBMS, NoSQL).

• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.).

• Experience in designing and implementing scalable test automation strategies using modern frameworks and tools such as k6, Locust, JMeter., with integration into CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Jenkins) and cloud-based testing platforms.

• Experience designing and delivering AI solutions using modern software engineering practices and cloud technologies (e.g., Azure, AWS, GCP), with a strong focus on Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs).

• Understanding of security best practices and frameworks. Knowledge of Snyk is a plus.

• Excellent communication, interpersonal, presentation, and facilitation skills across time zones.

Our Core Values:

Here are the Winning Way behaviors that all Vertex employees embrace every day:

• Own the Outcome: Commit to milestones and demonstrate unwavering support for team decisions. If you are unsure, ask!

• Work with Purpose: Foster a "We Can" mindset where results outweigh effort; everyone understands how their roles contribute to team outcomes.

• Act with Urgency: Adopt an agile mentality with a focus on quick iterations and resilience.

• Communicate with Clarity: Be clear, concise, and actionable. Embrace constructive feedback.

• Drive to Decision: Make decisions swiftly with defined deadlines and accountability.

Base pay offered to new hires may vary based upon factors including relevant industry and job-related skills and experience, geographic location, and business needs.* The range displayed does not encompass the full potential of the role, which allows for further growth and career progression.

In addition, as a part of our total compensation package, this role may be eligible for the Vertex Bonus Plan (VOB), a role-specific sales commission/bonus, and/or equity grants.

Learn more about Life at Vertex and connect with your recruiter for more details regarding Vertex's compensation and benefit programs.

*In no case will your pay fall below applicable local minimum wage requirements.