Job Description

Staff Engineers at SmartLogic provide technical leadership for multiple ongoing projects and help develop solutions for prospects and clients. Work is organized by project, with each staffed by a Project Manager, a Staff Engineer, Designers, and Developers. The Staff Engineer owns the planning and implementation of technical delivery and team efficiency, and works with the Project Manager to maintain the Product Requirements Document, Backlog, technical direction, and sprint planning. They commit directly to the codebase, pair program, lead code review, and use AI tools to speed up delivery without compromising quality. While not a direct supervisor, the Staff Engineer acts as technical expert and mentor to the team, and also assists in the pre-sales process through solutioning, scope refinement, and estimates.

This is a contract engagement with an hourly rate of $90-$110 per hour, based on experience. This position has flexible weekly hours based on project needs and your availability, which is currently estimated at 25-40 per week. You must be available during SmartLogic's core working hours of 10:00 AM–3:30 PM ET on weekdays, as some client and internal meetings occur during this window and your attendance may be required.

This position is fully remote within the United States and its Territories. As an independent contractor, you are responsible for your own taxes, benefits, and insurance; SmartLogic does not provide employee benefits for this engagement.

Responsibilities

• Support teams of 2 to 6 developers, designers, and QA analysts of varying skill levels and experience, providing guidance to ensure delivery on project commitments and meet client expectations.
• Co-lead delivery projects in partnership with the Project Manager to deliver projects on budget and on time.
• Mentor team members on assigned projects to follow SmartLogic processes for product development, including effective and responsible use of AI-assisted tools, working with the Project Manager to plan weekly goals to keep projects on track.
• Provide hands-on leadership for CI/CD pipelines, deployment strategies, AI innovations, environment configuration, and production operations.
• Work closely with the COO, Operations Manager, Project Managers, and team to communicate project progress, challenges, and resourcing needs.
• Partner with sales and consulting leadership on technical discovery, solution architecture, and rough-order-of-magnitude estimates that are timely and defensible, bringing consistency to how the team approaches quoting and estimating.
• Design, review, and support scalable, secure cloud and server architectures (primarily AWS and Azure).
• Serve as the technical expert on assigned projects, including QA and PR review, with attention to the quality and security of AI-assisted code.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience with modern software development practices and technologies, creating custom software to meet the expectations of a variety of clients.
• 7+ years of experience with Ruby on Rails, Elixir, and Phoenix, and 2+ years with Flutter and/or React Native.
• 5+ years of experience with DevOps practices including CI/CD, infrastructure-as-code, monitoring, deployment, and tooling (e.g., Terraform, Ansible, CI/CD pipelines, cloud monitoring).
• Practical, hands-on experience using AI-assisted development tools in a real production codebase (not limited to prototyping or personal projects) for code generation, refactoring, testing, debugging, or documentation, with the discipline to validate AI-generated code against normal testing and review standards.
• Demonstrated ability to evaluate AI tools and practices and establish repeatable workflows for a team, with the judgment to recognize when AI assistance helps versus when it introduces security, privacy, or quality risk.
• 3+ years in a consultancy, not solely product-based companies.
• Experience participating in technical discovery, solution design, and estimation for client-facing and sales prospect projects.
• Be organized, thoughtful, and intentional about process, as demonstrated by an ability to set and manage expectations among teammates and managers alike.

SmartLogic is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate in employment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy and gender identity), national origin, political affiliation, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, genetic information, age, membership in an employee organization, retaliation, parental status, military service, or other non-merit factor.

No phone calls or unsolicited emails, please. We do not work with recruiters or placement agencies.

About SmartLogic

SmartLogic is an experienced and growing custom software development consultancy successfully serving clients since 2005. We are deeply committed to our team, our clients, and the communities where we work. Some of our recent company initiatives include leading on youth workforce development, software developer apprenticeships, our Elixir Wizards podcast, and the Baltimore Women in Tech micro-grants program. SmartLogic values both continuous growth and giving back to the community, so there may be opportunities to engage at the professional level through conferences and our podcast.