---
title: 'Staff Software Engineer at Esper'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-esper-austin-zvg825gd9afs'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-14'
---

# Staff Software Engineer at Esper

- **Company:** Esper
- **Location:** Austin, TX
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-09-10
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-14
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/esper/20b2bfef-77c2-4e65-89b8-f3ef39d4ee32

## Job description

At Esper, we’re on a mission to empower dynamic and responsive policymaking in government. We’re building the platform that connects existing data, stakeholders, and public policy goals into a single dynamic system, transforming bureaucracy into infrastructure  that encourages innovation and collaboration. As a fast-growing GovTech company, Esper is at the intersection of two powerful forces: the modernization of government operations and the transformative potential of data-driven decision-making. Our customer base is expanding rapidly, and we’re building the team that will define how public policy is shaped for decades to come.

## What You'll Do

Esper is looking for an experienced Staff Software Engineer to join our team and take technical ownership of significant areas of our platform. This is a senior individual contributor role without direct reports. Because Esper's customers include state, local, and federal government agencies, the reliability, security, and compliance posture of our platform is central to the business.

As a senior member of the engineering team, you'll make a direct impact through:

- Designing, building, and operating core services and product features end to end, from data model through API to the systems that run them in production
- Setting technical direction and roadmap for your areas in partnership with engineering leadership
- Participating fully in product development, working with product and design from an ambiguous problem statement through to a shipped feature
- Modeling the domain our customers work in — the entities, relationships, roles, and processes that make up a government agency and its work — and evolving that model as the product grows
- Providing technical mentorship and design review to other engineers

## Skills and Experience

- 8+ years of software engineering experience
- Strong programming skills in a language such as Java, Python, Go, or Rust, and willingness to work primarily in Java
- Experience owning services in production, including their data stores, deployment, and observability
- Experience with distributed systems and asynchronous or long-running workflows
- Experience with domain and data modeling, and the judgment to know when a model needs to change
- Experience building production software on AWS or a comparable cloud provider
- Familiarity with Docker and infrastructure as code such as Terraform
- Genuine interest in the product, not just the systems underneath it
- Strong communication skills — you will be working closely with all of engineering, as well as with product, design, auditors, and customer security teams
- Ability to write clear, detailed technical documentation

Bonus Points

- Experience shipping LLM-backed or agentic features to production users
- Hands-on experience with agent frameworks such as Strands Agents, the Vercel AI SDK, LangChain4j, Spring AI, LangGraph, Pydantic AI, or the OpenAI Agents SDK
- Experience with workflow orchestration platforms such as Temporal, Cadence, or Step Functions
- Experience with Amazon Bedrock or AgentCore, or with deploying agents into a managed runtime
- Experience building evaluation, tracing, or quality monitoring tooling for LLM systems
- Experience with ontology modeling or knowledge graphs
- Experience with Kubernetes, GitOps pipelines, and cloud architecture best practices
- Experience implementing technical controls for SOC 2, ISO 27001, or a comparable framework, including direct participation in audits
- Experience taking a product through a FedRAMP or StateRAMP authorization
- Experience at a govtech or other compliance-driven organization

## Perks and Benefits

- Being a part of an innovative and collaborative team that will both support and challenge you
- Significant opportunity for growth and ownership
- Ability to shape Esper for the long-term
- Paid holidays & unlimited PTO
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Generous parental & sick leave
- 401(k) retirement plan with employer match
- Short/Long term disability & life insurance
- Flexible spending account (FSA)
- Work anniversary equity grants
- Quarterly bonuses
- Monthly stipend to offset remote work expenses
- Office equipment allowance
- Paid Time Off to participate in volunteer/community events

## About Esper

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Esper provides device management infrastructure for the operating edge, enabling enterprises to manage fleets of company-owned hardware (kiosks, POS, scanners) with a DevOps-driven, API-first platform.
- **Entity Type**: Private (funding details not publicly available)
- **Headquarters**: Bellevue, Washington, USA (with a second office in Bengaluru, India)
- **Founded**: 2018
- **Founders**: Yadhu Gopalan (Co-Founder & CEO) and Shiv Sundar (Co-Founder & Chief Business Operator)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Device management infrastructure (DMI) for enterprise hardware
- **Target customers**: B2B / Enterprise — companies that operate fleets of dedicated devices (kiosks, point-of-sale, barcode scanners, signage, etc.)
- **Mission or purpose**: “Power exceptional device experiences” by transforming how companies manage their device fleets, moving beyond traditional MDM into a DevOps-driven era.

## Products & Services
- **Esper Deploy**: Define device configuration (apps, settings, OS config, security) once; the fleet converges and stays there.
- **Esper Seamless Provisioning**: Zero-touch enrollment — the Esper agent ships inside the device image, and devices self-configure in under 5 minutes (supported by 40+ OEMs). Available for Android and Linux.
- **Esper Foundation (Custom Android)**: A maintained, patched Android OS without the burden of building it in-house; includes a Foundation SDK (Maven artifact) for direct OS subsystem access.
- **Esper Airwave**: Fully managed OTA firmware infrastructure for Android with staged rollouts and automatic rollback — updates in hours without MDM enrollment.
- **Esper Edgebox**: On-prem gateway that runs provisioning and operations locally, reducing provisioning time to ~2 min/device and update bandwidth by up to 98.75% for large or bandwidth-constrained fleets.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: 180 total employees (as of 2025); no public revenue or funding figures
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not disclosed in available sources; the company mentions investors in its blog but does not name them.
- **Growth Signals**: Named to Inc. Magazine’s 2025 Best Workplaces; reports “industry-leading net retention” and a customer-first mindset; operates two offices (Bellevue and Bengaluru).

## Competitive Advantages
- **Device Management Infrastructure (DMI)**: Goes beyond traditional MDM by covering the full stack — OS, provisioning, updates — for dedicated devices that cannot be managed like personal devices.
- **DevOps-driven approach**: Declarative core with a single API across all products; enables workflow automation, exception-based management, and eliminates re-provisioning.
- **Audited compliance**: PCI DSS v4.0, SOC 2, ISO 27001, with RBAC and session audit logs.
- **Hardware integration**: Ships provision-ready with 40+ OEMs; custom Android OS delivered as a managed service.
- **Edge capability**: Esper Edgebox reduces cloud dependency for bandwidth-constrained environments.

## Strategic Focus
- Move the device management market beyond MDM into a modern, DevOps-for-devices paradigm.
- Continue building automation and declarative management to eliminate manual re-provisioning.
- Expand platform capabilities across OSes (Android, Linux) and hardware types.
- Maintain strong customer retention through a customer-first culture.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture highlights**: “Fiercely Collaborative” and “Innovate, Experiment, Learn” are core principles. The company emphasizes DEIB, equitable compensation, and career growth paths.
- **Remote/Hybrid policy**: Hybrid workspace — employees typically work on-site 3 days a week at either the Bellevue or Bengaluru office.
- **Notable perks**: Named an Inc. Best Workplace 2025; supportive, empathetic culture with a focus on continuous improvement; interview process includes a phone screen, hiring manager interview, loop, and reference checks.
- **Engineering culture**: Hands-on, collaborative, and customer-obsessed; the platform is built for developers and operators managing hardware at scale.

## Sources
1. [Esper Careers Page](https://www.esper.io/careers)
2. [Esper Main Site](https://www.esper.io/)
3. [Esper About Us](https://www.esper.io/about-us)
4. [Built In Company Profile](https://builtin.com/company/esper)
5. [Esper Blog: Inc. Best Workplaces](https://www.esper.io/blog/the-five-principles-of-one-of-the-best-workplaces)

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