Founding Senior Core Software Engineer

We are looking for a talented and experienced Senior Software Engineer to join our founding engineering team. This is a unique opportunity to be one of the first key hires, playing a pivotal role in shaping not only our core backend services but also our engineering culture and the future direction of Chainloop.

Our vision is to build a platform that allows our customers to gather, secure, and contextualize all their SDLC data, empowering them to make informed decisions. As a foundational member, your role is to bring this vision to life. You will architect, develop, and scale the robust backend systems in Go that form our platform’s backbone.

Given our global team and customer base, this role requires occasional flexibility with your schedule. We are an ambitious, async-first startup, and we’re looking for someone who thrives in a dynamic environment and is motivated by the challenge of building from the ground up. You will be expected to take full, end-to-end ownership of ambiguous projects—from initial design and technical proposals to implementation, testing, and production monitoring.

If you’re passionate about DevSecOps, open-source, building resilient systems, and automating all the things, then we want to hear from you!

What We’re Looking For

• Senior Backend Experience: 10+ years designing, building, and maintaining complex backend systems. Early-stage product experience is a strong plus.
• Go Proficiency: Strong hands-on Go experience is highly desired. Expertise in other backend languages combined with a strong desire to learn Go is also valuable.
• Cloud-Native & API Expertise: Solid grasp of cloud-native technologies (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry) and strong RESTful API design skills. gRPC experience is a plus.
• Data-Centric Building (Bonus): Experience or strong interest in building features (search, insights, AI) on large datasets. Knowledge of data pipelines, search technologies (Elastic, vector DBs), or RAG patterns is a significant plus.
• Security Mindset: A genuine interest in software security, including DevSecOps, secure-by-design principles, or software supply chain concepts.
• Problem-Solver & Culture Builder: Excellent analytical skills and a collaborative spirit, eager to help build a positive and productive team culture.
• Open Source Passion: Experience contributing to or maintaining open-source projects is a significant plus.

Dos (The Actions We Expect)

• DO take full, end-to-end ownership. From initial design to production monitoring, you own your features. If you see a problem (a bug, a process, a stuck teammate), jump in and fix it—don’t wait for a ticket or say “it’s not my job.”
• DO be an async-first communicator. Default to excellent, proactive, and well-organized writing. In an async culture, you cannot “go dark” or hoard knowledge; over-communication is key.
• DO drive clarity from ambiguity. Take vague problems and create clear, actionable plans. If a discussion is going in circles, stop, re-align on the core issue, and then proceed.
• DO raise the bar. Actively elevate the team’s technical standards through mentorship, thoughtful code reviews, and helping us hire exceptional talent. Put the team’s success above personal ego.
• DO champion security and quality. Practice what we preach. Uphold the highest security and automation standards so that shipping value daily (even on a Friday) is a non-event.
• DO leverage AI & automation. Actively integrate these tools into your core workflow to multiply productivity, improve quality, and eliminate repetitive work.

Key Attributes for Success

To succeed in this role, you should embody the following traits:

1. Clarity, Communication & Async Discipline: You create clarity from ambiguity; communicate with crisp, proactive async writing; and self-manage with high reliability.
2. Extreme Ownership & Bias for Action: You feel deep, collective responsibility for outcomes; fix unowned problems; and speak up early when misaligned.
3. Team Multiplier & Knowledge Sharer: You increase the effectiveness of the entire team through mentoring, documentation, pairing, and removing knowledge bottlenecks.
4. Technical & Security Excellence: You build robust backend systems with secure-by-design thinking; treating supply-chain security and correctness as non-negotiable.
5. Automation-First, High-Leverage Engineer: You use automation, AI, and tooling to eliminate toil; constantly increasing throughput and quality with leverage, not hours.
6. High-Growth Mindset: You learn fast, absorb feedback without defensiveness, and thrive in early-stage ambiguity with a mission-first mindset.

Why You’ll Love Working With Us

• Foundational Impact: Be one of the very first engineers, directly shaping the product, technology, and culture of an early-stage company. Your work will be critical to our success.
• Mission-Driven Work: Contribute directly to our mission: helping companies build and ship trusted software faster.
• Cutting-Edge Technology: Work with modern technologies like Go, Kubernetes, cloud-native tools, and explore applications of AI. You’ll be at the forefront of innovation in the DevSecOps space.
• Remote-First: We are a distributed team, offering you the flexibility to work from anywhere.
• Competitive Salary, Equity, and Benefits: We offer a competitive compensation package, including meaningful equity.

Ready for the challenge? Then let’s talk!