Author: The Hub

About Phaidra

Phaidra is building the future of industrial automation.

The world today is filled with static, monolithic infrastructure. Factories, power plants, buildings, etc. operate the same they’ve operated for decades — because the controls programming is hard-coded. Thousands of lines of rules and heuristics that define how the machines interact with each other. The result of all this hard-coding is that facilities are frozen in time, unable to adapt to their environment while their performance slowly degrades.

Phaidra creates AI-powered control systems for the industrial sector, enabling industrial facilities to automatically learn and improve over time. Specifically:

• We use reinforcement learning algorithms to provide this intelligence, converting raw sensor data into high-value actions and decisions.
• We focus on industrial applications, which tend to be well-sensorized with measurable KPIs — perfect for reinforcement learning.
• We enable domain experts (our users) to configure the AI control systems (i.e. agents) without writing code. They define what they want their AI agents to do, and we do it for them.

Our team has a track record of applying AI to some of the toughest problems. From achieving superhuman performance with DeepMind’s AlphaGo, to reducing the energy required to cool Google’s Data Centers by 40%, we deeply understand AI and how to apply it in production for massive impact.

Phaidra is based in the USA but 100% remote; we do not have a physical office. We hire employees internationally with the help of our partner, OysterHR. Our team is currently located throughout the USA, Canada, UK, Norway, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and India.

**Please only apply to one opening. If you are a better fit for another opening, our team will move your application. Candidates who apply to multiple openings will not be considered.**

Who You Are

We are looking for a very experienced Software Engineer with a focus on Distributed System tech leadership to be a part of our growing Data Platform team. You are bold and creative, and have deep empathy for customers. You will design and implement significant parts of the code base and will have the opportunity to make an immediate impact with your work and guide the product and team as we grow.

The Data platform team at Phaidra is responsible for –

• Building streaming & batch components that power both realtime & historical data ingestion & processing
• Building and optimising the data and feature stores
• Building high-throughput and highly-available multi-modal APIs used throughout the organization, from agent training, to realtime inference to user facing applications.
• Building the central orchestration & metadata layer, and APIs of the core Platform.
• Building services to fetch and store external third party data (ex. weather forecasts) required for AI training.

**We are seeking a team member located in one of the following areas: the UK, Norway, Italy, Spain, Portugal, or Ireland.

Responsibilities

The Data Platform team that you are joining is responsible for building the core data platform that powers data ingestion, processing, storage and serving for all customers. We focus on multi-tenancy as a core construct while building all the layers and interact with various internal teams to provide automated tooling to utilise the raw/processed data. This is a Software Engineering role at the core, and you will join as an experienced engineer to scale our service across batch and stream processing as we grow.

As an organization, we strongly believe in expertise across the stack. As such, you will experience flavors of Software Engineering, Distributed Systems, Databases, Feature engineering, DataOps and DevOps. As a Software Engineer(Tech Lead, Data Platform) you will play a Tech Lead role in the Data platform team and in particular:

• Build and design scalable components for the Data platform to allow high throughput data ingestion & data processing, which feeds the data into agents doing realtime inference for autonomous control of industrial systems.
• Design and develop systems to store and serve batch data for agent training or analytics.
• Contribute to the design and implementation of the product backend by writing REST & gRPC API services and scalable event-driven backend applications.
• Design clear, extensible software interfaces for the team’s customers and maintain a high release quality bar.
• Design and optimize data storage & retrieval mechanisms for high throughput, security & ease of access.
• Perform DevOps duties of CI/CD, Release & Deployment management.
• Be a part of our global production oncall team and, own & operate your services in production, meeting Phaidra’s high bar for operational excellence.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives and collaborating with engineers, product managers and TPM across teams.
• Mentor your peers and be a technical role-model in the team.

Onboarding

In your first 30 days…

• You will be immersed in an onboarding program that introduces you to Phaidra and our product.
• You will spend time in the Engineering org, learning how the teams operate, interact, and approach problems.
• You will read various parts of our handbook and familiarize yourself with the documentation culture at Phaidra.
• You will set up your development environment and start working on an onboarding exercise that will introduce you to various parts of our code base.
• You will learn about how we use agile and be able to navigate our sprint boards and backlogs.
• You will learn about various team standards and development & release processes.
• You will start to learn about our system architecture and infrastructure.
• You will start picking up few good “first-tasks” to get yourself accustomed to the end to end release flow.

By your first 60 days…

• You will have a solid understanding of what Phaidra does and how we do it.
• You will have met with team members across Phaidra and started building relationships that will help you be successful at your job.
• You will have completed the onboarding exercise and will be on your way to completing your first production task.
• You will have identified areas of improvement in the data platform and started thinking towards them while working with the team.

By your first 90 days…

• You will have been fully integrated in the team and with team members across the company.
• You will get a more in-depth understanding of our system architecture and infrastructure.
• You will have completed your first on-call experience helping monitor and improve our production environments.
• You will have become an expert with our tooling.
• You will be a distributed systems expert in the company, drive discussions on important topics and present them in the learning sessions.

Key Qualifications

• 10+ years of work experience.
• Proven record on impact as a Tech Leader and bar-raiser for ambitious Software Engineering teams
• Strong experience on designing and implementing distributed systems for data ingestion, storage and processing
• Extensive experience with platform Software Engineering with the ability to contribute on all levels as an individual contributor and tech leader
• Strong expertise on building, operating and monitoring large scale multi-tenant systems with high availability, fault tolerance, performance tuning, monitoring, and metrics collection
• Ability to take ownership of realtime production systems – aligning technical with business requirements, raising the bar for operational excellence and on-call incident handling
• Strong expertise in Cloud environments and any of Python, Go or Java
• Ability to collaborate and communicate effectively in an all-remote setting
• Doing your work with curiosity, ownership, transparency & directness, outcome orientation, and customer empathy.

Bonus

• Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies like Docker & Kubernetes.
• Experience with building applications that can be deployed in cloud, as well as in hybrid or on-prem environment
• Experience with building self-serve Data Platform and/or high scale DataLake/Lakehouse.

Relevant Technologies from our Stack

• Python, Go
• Ray.io, Prefect
• REST & gRPC micro-services
• Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform & Kapitan
• GCP – GKE, PubSub, CloudSQL, BigTable, Postgres, MongoDB, BigQuery etc.
• Grafana Cloud, Prometheus
• Poetry, Pants
• Gitlab CI, ArgoCD, Atlantis

General Interview Process

All of our interviews are held via Google Meet, and an active camera connection is required.

1. Meeting with Operations (30 minutes): The purpose of this interview is to meet you, learn more about your background, discuss what you are looking for in a new position and cover formalities around your application. 

2. Hiring manager interview (30 minutes): The purpose of this meeting is for you to get to know the manager for the role. This chat will mainly focus on your previous experience and technical background. You can expect to talk about projects that you have worked on in the past and ask any questions about the team & role. 

3. Technical Interview 1 (75 minutes): The purpose of this interview is to assess your skills in data structures, algorithms and problem solving. This interview will involve live coding exercises.

4. Technical Interview 2 (90 minutes): In this interview, we will go over a real world distributed systems problem. You can expect to draw architecture diagrams using boxes & arrows in your browser. We will talk about system design, scalability and monitoring.

5. Tech Lead + Product interview (60 minutes): This interview is a combination of technical and cultural fit assessment. We will cover your technical experience and the skills as an engineer and a tech lead while discussing projects that you have worked on in the past.You will meet with a member of the Product team as well as our VP of Engineering, with the opportunity to ask any questions about the team, role and engineering at Phaidra

6. Culture fit interview with Phaidra’s co-founders (30 minutes): This interview focuses on alignment with Phaidra’s values and the mutual cultural fit.

Base Salary

• UK Residents: £108,000-£162,000/year

Salary ranges for other countries (Italy, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Ireland) will vary based on the market rate for the location.

This position will also include equity.

These are best faith estimates of the base salary range for this position. Multiple factors such as experience, education, level, and location are taken into account when determining compensation.

Benefits & Perks

• Fast-paced and team-oriented environment where you will be instrumental in the direction of the company.
• Phaidra is a 100% remote company with a digital nomad policy.
• Competitive compensation & equity.
• Outsized responsibilities & professional development.
• Training is foundational; functional, customer immersion, and development training.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance (exact benefits vary by region).
• Unlimited paid time off, with a minimum of 20 days off per year requirement.
• Paid parental leave (exact benefits vary by region).
• Home office setup allowance, coworking space stipend, and company MacBook.

*Please note that Phaidra’s benefits and perks listed above do not apply to temporary employees such as interns.

On being Remote

We are thoughtful about remote collaboration. We look to the pioneers – like Gitlab – for inspiration and best practices to create a stellar remote work environment. We have a documentation-first culture and actively practice asynchronous communication in everything we do. Our team stays connected through tools like Slack and video chat. Most teams meet daily, and we have dedicated all-hands meetings weekly to build strong relationships. We hold virtual team building events once per quarter – and even hold virtual socials to watch rocket launches! We have a yearly in-person, all-company summit in locations like Seattle, Athens, Goa, and Barcelona.

Equal Opportunity Employment

Phaidra is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment with Phaidra is governed on the basis of merit, competence, and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender, national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability, or any other legally protected status. We welcome diversity and strive to maintain an inclusive environment for all employees. If you need assistance with completing the application process, please contact us at 

hi****@ph*****.ai











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E-Verify Notice

Phaidra participates in E-Verify, an employment authorization database provided through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Social Security Administration (SSA). As required by law, we will provide the SSA and, if necessary, the DHS, with information from each new employee’s Form I-9 to confirm work authorization for those residing in the United States.

Additional information about E-Verify can be found here.

#LI-Remote

WE DO NOT ACCEPT APPLICATIONS FROM RECRUITERS.

Company Description

Ent Credit Union exists to improve the financial quality of life of the people we serve. This mission drives us every day, but we are more than our mission. We’re also individuals using our unique abilities to make our organization, and the communities we serve, better than they were yesterday. We’re a not-for-profit that puts people above profits and actively invests in our community. Our rapidly growing team is expanding our reach to serve more people throughout Colorado. To spread our mission far and wide, we need people like you. If you’re interested in a paycheck with a purpose, apply with us today. Our people make the difference, and we truly believe you are our greatest asset.

Job Description

The Enterprise Data Architect has an advanced understanding of the methodologies and techniques relevant to designing, creating, deploying, and managing Ent’s data architecture. The end result will enable Ent to meet or exceed various business strategies. This resource will work primarily on agile teams with project managers, product owners, data engineers, business intelligence analysts, data scientists, and developers.

Essential Functions

• Database and Data Lake architecture/design: Initiate/recommend the collection of new data sources or modification of existing data sources to solve business problems. Architect database and/or data lake schemas to ensure data is stored in an efficient manner that aligns with the business objectives and allows rapid, actionable insights. Consult with Data Engineers on pipeline development ensuring data mappings align with the expected schemas. Consult with Data/BI analysts and Data Scientists to ensure data schemas and pipeline processing meet the needs of downstream analytical processes. Design and optimize high performing data models for different consumption patterns from the data stores (databases and/or data lakes). Act as subject matter expert for ALL data flowing into Ent’s data warehouse/lakehouse.
• Business Partnership/Communication: Develop partnerships with the consumers of Ent’s data assets to understand business needs. Facilitate schema development that aligns with business definitions. Document how schemas map to business data sources.
• Architectural Patterns and Practices: Document various architectural patterns and practices for use throughout the Data & Analytics teams. Perform periodic checks to ensure Data Engineers are following best practices as documented, including participating in code reviews on occasion.
• Data Governance: Work closely with the Data Governance committee in helping define data standards and policies. Ensure any design/development adheres to the Data Governance standards/policies. Help ensure the data integrity of data at all stages (ingestion to presentation). Help ensure data is secure and only accessible within guidelines set forth by the Data Governance committee. Help document current data processes, including data flow diagrams and data dictionaries.
• Technical Lead: Increase team effectiveness by providing consulting expertise and technical mentoring across multiple verticals.
• Bank Secrecy Act: Remains cognizant of and adheres to Ent policies and procedures, and regulations pertaining to the Bank Secrecy Act.

Qualifications

Minimum Formal Qualifications for this Position

• Bachelor’s Degree with an emphasis on coursework of a quantitative nature i.e. Business Analytics. Statistics. Information Systems. Or a related area.
• 8+ years’ experience with Management Information Systems, Computer Science, Data Analytics, or similar relevant field to include:
• 4+ years’ Data modeling/design/architecture experience.
• 2+ years working with an enterprise-wide Data Governance initiative. Pref
• 2+ years Financial Institution experience. Pref

Each year of relevant work experience may be exchanged for a year in a relevant degree program or vice versa. For example, a requirement of a bachelor’s degree in accounting and 2+ years of account experience could be substituted for a high school diploma and 6 years of relevant accounting work experience or a master’s degree in accounting and 0 years of work experience.

Technical or Specialized Knowledge/Skills:

• Data Architecture/Design core skills:
• Expert-level data requirement gathering skills (the ability to glean data requirements from various business stakeholders and subsequently ensure delivery of the expected data assets).
• Expert-level data modeling skills including demonstrated experience with: Relational data modeling (such as database Entity-Relationship Diagrams). Data Warehouse star schema modeling. Data Lake design and implementation. Data pipeline design patterns and architecture.
• Data Governance core skills:
• Deep understanding of and demonstrated experience with enterprise Data Governance initiatives.
• Thorough understanding of and demonstrated experience with data security at multiple layers. Database and Data Lake access controls (such as RBAC, SQL Schema boundaries, etc.). Data encryption (such as SQL Always Encrypted and/or SQL TDE). Data hashing.
• Thorough understanding of and demonstrated experience with data quality standards/best practices.
• Thorough understanding of and demonstrated experience with data retention processes.
• Data Engineering core skills:
• Development and maintenance of various data pipeline processes, including targeting/sourcing data to/from a wide-variety of systems and file types.
• Thorough understanding of data pipeline patterns and practices.
• Advanced knowledge of and demonstrated experience with the following technologies:
• Modern data warehouse concepts and practices.
• SQL query syntax (ANSI SQL, TSQL, or other well-known SQL implementation).
• SQL Server database administration in on-prem and Azure environments, including: Performance tuning. Index optimizing. Query analysis. Job monitoring.
• Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS), Azure Data Factory, or similar.
• Development tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio.
• Version control systems, preferably Azure DevOps (formerly VSTS) and TFVC and/or Git.
• Agile development processes, such as Scrum or Kanban.
• Other skills:
• Must be able to work independently to deliver complete system solutions and provide guidance within technical area, applying in-depth knowledge of multiple technologies, as appropriate.
• Must be comfortable working in highly collaborative environments.
• Must be able to conduct presentations in group settings in a professional and courteous manner.
• Must be able to learn new and emerging concepts very quickly.
• Must be able to maintain good productivity in developing efficient code and database designs in a very timely manner, with defect rates kept to a minimum.
• Experience acting as a consultant to other professionals in IT, providing technical leadership in their area of specialization.
• (preferred) Knowledge of Databricks, including DeltaLake concepts.
• (preferred) Knowledge of programming languages such as C#, Python, Scala, Spark SQL, etc.

Certifications Required:

• MCSE SQL Server (2016 or later) or similar certification preferred
• Azure Data Engineer or similar certification preferred
• Databricks (Associate or Professional) preferred

Environmental, Physical and Psychological Requirements

• Standing – Occasionally
• Walking – Occasionally
• Sitting – Frequently
• Lifting – Rarely (40 Lbs)
• Carrying – Rarely
• Pushing – Rarely
• Pulling – Rarely
• Balancing – Rarely
• Stooping – Rarely
• Kneeling – Rarely
• Crouching – Rarely
• Crawling – Rarely
• Reaching – Occasionally
• Handling – Occasionally
• Grasping – Occasionally
• Feeling – Occasionally
• Talking – Frequently
• Hearing – Frequently
• Repetitive Motions – Frequently
• Eye/Hand/Foot Coordination – Occasionally
• Noises louder than normal speaking volume – Occasionally
• Temperature Changes – Rarely
• Atmospheric Conditions – Rarely

 

Additional Information

The pay range for this position is: $118,414 to $155,413 per Year (I18)

Final compensation for this position will be determined by various factors such as relevant work experience, specific skills and competencies, education, certifications, and internal pay equity.

This position is eligible for our corporate bonus program based on company performance.

We anticipate this position to close on 7/5/2024. Please submit your application at your earliest convenience to be considered.

Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities.

Benefits Summary Sheet – 2024

The contractor will not discharge or in any other manner discriminate against employees or applicants because they have inquired about, discussed, or disclosed their own pay or the pay of another employee or applicant. However, employees who have access to the compensation information of other employees or applicants as a part of their essential job functions cannot disclose the pay of other employees or applicants to individuals who do not otherwise have access to compensation information, unless the disclosure is (a) in response to a formal complaint or charge, (b) in furtherance of an investigation, proceeding, hearing, or action, including an investigation conducted by the employer, or (c) consistent with the contractor’s legal duty to furnish information. 41 CFR 60-1.35(c)