A Senior Software Developer is responsible for client success by creating and implementing innovative solutions to complex business challenges. Within the Environmental Services (ENS) Global Practice, the Senior Software Developer will lead the design, development and analysis of sophisticated software programs and applications, with a focus on a full-stack, AI-enabled geospatial platforms that support our major enterprise initiatives and digital delivery offerings. The Senior Software Developer will conduct in-depth analysis of software errors, identify root causes and engineer robust solutions to improve application stability and performance. The role will also provide comprehensive status reports and technical insights on enterprise-level applications to stakeholders and leadership. Software applications are built primarily on Google Cloud Platform (GCP) within a hybrid-cloud environment that also includes Azure, with potential future AWS adoption. What you will do
- Serve as a technical leader on complex software development projects, partnering closely with designers, analysts, environmental and GIS subject matter experts, and other developers to create new programs and applications.
- Serve as lead for significant components or entire projects, making critical technical recommendations that influence the team and collaborating with developers across other business lines.
- Drive planning and execution of the software development lifecycle for assigned projects using Agile practices (sprints, backlog, pull requests and build checks).
- Be responsible for end-to-end design, implementation, testing and maintenance of sophisticated, scalable software products.
- Write efficient, well-documented code according to specifications and create custom software solutions to optimize operations.
- Lead efforts to perform software updates, testing and enhancement, ensuring the long-term health and functionality of the codebase.
- Champion code standards and best practices, including source control in GitHub, code reviews and automated testing and mentoring junior application specialists and software developers participating in software initiatives.
- Research emerging software development tools and techniques, applying this knowledge to enhance functionality and improve internal processes.
Application, Geospatial & AI Development
- Develop and maintain containerized Python/Django applications (Docker) from ideation to proof-of-concept and into production phases.
- Build geospatial data ingestion and processing workflows for raster and vector data (e.g., GeoJSON, Shapefile, Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF) using Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions and Cloud Run Jobs into Cloud SQL/PostgreSQL/PostGIS, including bulk upload, chunking/batching and spatial indexing for performance at scale.
- Support map layer and tile delivery and integration with desktop GIS clients such as QGIS and Esri.
- Develop scalable data pipelines using Databricks and other standard ETL practices.
- Integrate generative AI models into a natural-language interfaces for interacting with geospatial and environmental data.
- Develop backend services and pipelines for model training, inference, and deployment.
- Utilize GCP Vertex AI for pipelines, model registry, prediction, and vector search.
- Ensure Responsible AI governance and observability.
- Benchmark and track AI model accuracy, response time, latency and cost to support model-selection and operating-cost decisions.
- Design and deliver priority workflows that support major environmental initiatives and modern digital delivery.
Collaboration with Corporate Technology (Data Engineering, TSG, Platform Engineering)
- Partner with the TSG-assigned Solutions Engineer and/or Data Engineer on solution architecture, requirements, design decisions and technical standards, serving as the development counterpart to ensure engineering practices support the intended architecture.
- Work with the Platform Engineering Team, which provides Harness-based DevOps/CI/CD and infrastructure deployment, security, authentication and related platform services, to build and release applications across Dev, Test and Production environments.
- Contribute to and consume Infrastructure as Code (Terraform) repositories and deployment artifacts, and coordinate infrastructure and access needs early to avoid blockers and dependencies.
- Follow Corporate security patterns including Burns & McDonnell single sign-on (SSO), service accounts and IAM roles, VPC connectivity, Cloudflare-secured access and secure third-party data ingestion.
- Participate in sprint planning, reviews and production-readiness and hardening activities with TSG, Data Engineering and Platform Engineering.
- Apply cross-cloud awareness (GCP primary, Azure, and potentially AWS) so solutions remain portable and aligned with Corporate cloud strategy.
Documentation, Standards & Leadership
- Maintain system and API documentation, architecture diagrams and runbooks.
- Mentor less experienced developers and provide guidance and instruction to staff.
- Adhere to QA/QC processes and comply with company and site safety policies and standards.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
- Bachelor Degree in Computer Science or related field and 8 years related professional experience or
- Associate Degree and 10 years related professional experience or
- High School Diploma/GED and 12 years related professional experience.
- Strong knowledge of computer equipment, storage, back-ups, operating systems and tools used in an operating environment.
- Strong attention to detail, facilitation, team building, collaboration, organization, and problem-solving skills.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
- Ability to work methodically and analytically in a quantitative problem-solving environment.
- Demonstrated critical thinking skills.
- Expert in Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, and PPT).
- Ability to obtain applicable certifications.
Preferred Qualifications
- Professional experience with Python and Django (or similar web frameworks), Docker/containers, GitHub and CI/CD pipelines.
- Hands-on experience with Google Cloud (Cloud Storage, Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Vertex AI); Azure and/or AWS experience a plus.
- Experience with Terraform/Infrastructure as Code and working with DevOps/platform teams (e.g., Harness).
- Experience with PostgreSQL/PostGIS, GIS tools (Map Tiling, QGIS and Esri) and raster/vector geospatial data formats.
- Experience integrating LLMs/generative AI into applications, including prompt design, evaluation and cost/latency monitoring.
- Working knowledge of authentication/authorization (SSO, OAuth2/OIDC, IAM) and secure application development.
- Familiarity with environmental, compliance or consulting engineering workflows.