Software Development Engineer

Locus The Software Factory

Software Development Engineer - 3 (Backend) Who We Are

Were Locus. We move the worlds goods.

Our algorithms have optimized over 1 billion deliveries. Were the enterprise TMS trusted by IKEA, Unilever, UPS and some of the largest supply chains on the planet. Backed by Ingka Group (IKEAs parent), were building a composable, multi-modal transportation management system thats redefining logistics technology.

Were not hiring to fill seats. Were hiring builders who build for other builders.

What Youll Do

You own the backend end to end. Design doc to deployment. Production to on-call. Heres what that looks like day to day:

Architect and ship backend systems that run in production at enterprise scale.

Build fault-tolerant services with clear SLIs/SLOs, strong observability, and predictable performance.

Drive design and implementation for microservices and distributed workflows messaging, async processing, retries, idempotency.

Work closely with a team both Biological and Digital comprising Product, Frontend, QA/SDET, DevOps/SRE, and Data teams to turn business requirements into robust systems.

Raise engineering standards through design reviews, code reviews, and operational best practices.

Mentor junior engineers and lead by example on craft, ownership, and execution.

What You Bring

Must-Haves

5+ years building production backend systems SaaS or product environments preferred.

Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, concurrency, reliability, and scalability.

Deep experience with Java, Spring / Spring Boot preferred.

Proven track record designing and building REST APIs and microservices.

Working knowledge across the stack: relational + NoSQL databases, messaging (Kafka/RabbitMQ), caching (Redis/Memcached).

Strong debugging instincts, you resolve complex production issues with clarity and ownership.

Exposure to cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure) and modern practices: CI/CD, automated testing, observability.

Track record of shipping and coding and not just planning.

Strong Signals - We Actively Look for These

Degrees dont tell us much. These do:

Youve built something on your own time, open source, side project, internal tool.

Youve contributed to a top open-source project.

Youve filed a patent or published research.

Youve written technical content others reference, or spoken at a conference.

Youve competed in or completed something grueling, ultra-marathon, Ironman, competitive programming, hackathon wins.

We dont fill seats. We hire builders who build for other builders.

What We Dont Care About

Which college you went to. Seriously.

Whether your resume has Big Tech logos.

How many years youve held exactly this job title.

We care about what you built, why you couldnt stop, and how you think.

The Stack

Languages: Java, Kotlin, Python, TypeScript,Spring / Spring Boot

Infrastructure: AWS, Kubernetes, Kafka, PostgreSQL, Redis, Elasticsearch

Data / ML: Spark, Airflow, optimization engines (routing, ETA, slotting)

Scale: 350+ deployments 30+ countries billions of deliveries high-volume daily computations

Why Locus is different:

This isnt a perks list. Its a contract between Locus and people who build.

1. Inference Compute Budget - For Builders Who Ship: Every engineer gets $5,000/year in AI/LLM inference credits, The budget is the baseline, you need more we have it for you!

2. Patent Premium - on It. Permanently: File a patent at Locus, stays on it for Eternity, Check our Patents and patents holders

3. Lifetime Royalty Program - Build the Builders: Build an internal tool that automates a process or makes us more efficient Locus pays you a royalty, not just while youre here, but even after you leave.

4. Excellence Beyond Code Ironman, ultra-marathon, national-level sport, FIDE 2000+, we see these as signals of craft, grit, and finishing. They matter to us.

5. Open Source Bounty Active contributor to a top-1000 GitHub repo Joining bonus. Active maintainers get dedicated 20% time to keep contributing.

6. Conference Speaker Fund Accepted to speak at a global conference We cover travel, registration, and stay. No questions asked.

7. 1 Billion Deliveries on Your Resume: You can truthfully say: “My code optimized 1B+ deliveries across 30+ countries.” We verify it.

8. Alumni Network That Doesnt Forget You: Leaving Locus You still get a reduced compute budget ($1K/yr), alumni summit access, referral bonuses, and a fast-track to re-hire.

Apply…