Staff Software Engineer

CaptivateIQ is transforming the way companies plan, manage, and optimize sales performance. We started by revolutionizing incentive compensation management, and now we're expanding our platform to solve broader sales planning challenges. Recognized by industry analysts like Forrester and G2 and backed by top-tier investors, including Sequoia, ICONIQ, Accel, and Sapphire Ventures, we empower high-growth companies like Netflix, Figma, and Stripe with the flexibility and insights needed to drive revenue performance.

About the Role

CaptivateIQ's modeling engine is the computation core that powers every product - turning business models into real-time, trustworthy calculations at enterprise scale. We're looking for a **Staff Software Engineer** to set the technical strategy for the Modeling Platform team, which owns and evolves this universal computation engine as a single unified service.

This is a strategic technical leadership role with multi-year scope. You'll evolve an established computation platform into a distributed architecture that scales from tens of millions to billions of records with real-time performance and deterministic accuracy. You'll make high-stakes technical decisions - horizontal scaling strategies, materialization approaches, storage engine tradeoffs - and be responsible for choices that affect product teams across the organization.

As the technical anchor on the Modeling Platform team, you'll be a force multiplier who makes the entire team and broader engineering organization better - through design leadership, mentorship, and raising the engineering bar. You'll lead by influence across organizational boundaries, driving alignment between consuming product teams and the platform. You'll invest deeply in coaching and developing engineers toward senior and staff-level impact.

Job Location

The candidate selected for this opportunity must reside near one of the following locations:

Hybrid (in-office 3 days per week)

Austin, TX

Remote

Raleigh, NC

Nashville, TN

Toronto, Canada

Responsibilities

• Set the multi-year technical strategy for the modeling platform, partnering with senior EPD leadership on long-term vision
• Architect distributed computation systems that scale horizontally with predictable SLAs, evolving from single-node to partitioned, parallel execution at enterprise scale
• Own technical decisions with organization-wide impact where the right answer is ambiguous or contested
• Drive operational excellence for mission-critical financial workloads: reliability, observability, graceful degradation, cost efficiency, and incident response
• Design platform APIs and SDKs consumed by multiple product teams, ensuring consistent behavior, strong contracts, and rapid feature adoption
• Be a force multiplier - elevate engineering capabilities across teams through design leadership, code review standards, architectural mentorship, and knowledge sharing that scales beyond your own direct contributions
• Invest deeply in coaching engineers, helping them grow in scope and develop toward senior and staff-level impact

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with progression into staff-level technical leadership
• Deep expertise in distributed systems and data-intensive architectures at scale
• Track record of operational excellence for mission-critical production systems
• Demonstrated force multiplier - elevates teams through mentorship, design leadership, and raising the technical bar
• Ability to set technical strategy across teams and make high-stakes decisions under ambiguity

Bonus

• Experience with Go and/or Python for backend systems
• Familiarity with columnar data formats (Apache Arrow, Parquet) and OLAP storage engines (ClickHouse, DuckDB, or similar)
• Experience evolving monolithic systems into distributed architectures (partitioning, coordination, fault tolerance)
• Background in computation engines, formula evaluation systems, spreadsheet engines, or financial modeling platforms
• Experience with materialization strategies, caching architectures, or change-data-capture systems
• Experience designing platform SDKs or APIs consumed by multiple product teams
• Experience building and scaling internal platforms or developer experience infrastructure
• Experience partnering with senior leadership to align technical direction with business objectives
• Experience at a B2B SaaS company during periods of significant growth or platform expansion
• Familiarity with sales performance management, incentive compensation, or adjacent enterprise domains

Benefits

• Comprehensive Healthcare: 100% coverage for medical, dental, and vision for all FTEs, with roughly 75% coverage for dependents.
• Flexible Time Off: Flexible vacation days plus quarterly mental health days to ensure you have the space to recharge.
• Annual Stipends: Dedicated funds for your professional development and caretaking needs.
• Work Anniversary Bonuses: Annual bonuses to celebrate your milestones and contributions to the CaptivateIQ team that grow as your tenure does.
• Retirement Savings (US-Only): A 401(k) plan to help you invest in and secure your future.
• Premium Tools: The latest Apple hardware to empower you to do your best work.
• Inclusive Community: Active Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) that celebrate shared identities and support our DEI goals by fostering an environment where diverse talent thrives.

Notice to Prospective Candidates

• Only emails from @captivateiq.com should be trusted.
• We are aware of active recruitment scams using the CaptivateIQ name, in which individuals pose as our recruiters and post fake remote job openings and make fake job offers on the Internet. Please note, we will never do the following:Attempt to correspond with a candidate using a free web-based account, such as an email address that ends in @gmail.com, @yahoo.com, @hotmail.com, etc.
• Make an offer of employment without conducting multiple rounds of interviews face-to-face using secure video-conferencing technology.
• Ask candidates to cash checks to buy equipment on behalf of CaptivateIQ.
• Ask candidates to make a payment in order to be considered for a position.
• Make early requests for candidates' personal information such as date of birth, passport details, credit card numbers, bank details and social security number, etc.
• Please note that we’ll only ask for more sensitive personal information in connection with background checks after an offer is made.
• Participate in an on-call rotation to provide after-hours support, ensuring timely resolution of critical issues and maintaining system uptime.

$181,289 - $250,239 a year

The base range represents the minimum and maximum for this position across North America. For candidates in Toronto, Canada the range is $181,289–$209,202. The compensation offered for this position will depend on numerous factors, including individual proficiency, anticipated performance, and the location of the selected candidate. Our OTE is just one component of CaptivateIQ's competitive total rewards package.

CaptivateIQ participates in E-Verify, web-based system that allows enrolled employers to confirm the eligibility of their employees to work in the United States

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.