Lead Software Engineer

About 8th Light: 8th Light is a premier, internationally recognized technology solutions pioneer, software engineering innovator, and digital product strategy leader on an absolute mission to bring life to the world’s best ideas. Partnering directly with high-impact organizations ranging from early-stage startups to multi-national global enterprises, the firm works across diverse industries to optimize digital assets through experiential design, advanced artificial intelligence solutions, and deep technical engineering expertise. Founded in 2006 and headquartered in Chicago, 8th Light has built a world-class reputation anchored in absolute software quality, breakthrough thinking, and an open, collaborative culture grounded in honesty. Operating on a remote-first model that champions continuous technical education and structured mentorship, the company provides high-agency systems builders with an uncompromised environment to scale complex code infrastructures and deliver meaningful client outcomes safely worldwide.

Position Overview

We are seeking a highly analytical, polyglot-minded Lead Software Engineer to join our core centralized Technology consulting division in a full-time remote capacity across the United States, with a strategic network option to align with physical community hubs in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, or Seattle. Serving as our premier go-to technologist on high-stakes customer engagements, you will step up to claim individual strategic accountability for managing, defining, and optimizing the comprehensive technical architecture and code delivery pathways across one to two major client portfolios per year. Shifting completely away from specialized single-stack routines or simple app modifications, you will direct distributed engineering cells to balance advanced software design discussions with pragmatic timeline constraints. This position requires a consulting veteran with 7+ years of professional history who writes production-quality multi-language code fluidly, builds full-lifecycle ML and data processing pipelines smoothly, and handles architecture-level concerns regarding scalability and security face-to-face with client technical leaders.

Key Responsibilities

• Polyglot Application Architecture Governance: Architect, refactor, and write highly performant full-stack systems, delivering high-quality, maintainable code blocks natively utilizing Backend multi-language scripts across Python, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Ruby, Scala, or Go.
• Enterprise Data Engineering Orchestration: Model, configure, and scale robust data pipelines and big-data analytical clusters, transforming raw ingestion inputs cleanly natively leveraging Data Scientist platforms like Databricks and Apache Spark.
• Full-Lifecycle ML System Integration: Code and support systems involving the comprehensive machine learning lifecycle, power-routing data preprocessing arrays, LangChain application architectures, model deployments, and live telemetry performance monitoring.
• Agentic AI-Assisted Development Curation: Direct and leverage advanced generative AI engineering tools responsibly to accelerate software scaffolding, complex refactoring loops, automated test generation, and runtime code documentation.
• Context-Appropriate Quality Assurance: Establish and execute rigorous automated testing guidelines, utilizing automated test suites to inform core software design choices, optimize edge-case boundaries, and eradicate system regressions.
• Strategic Roadmap and Backlog Management: Lead distributed client teams through agile sprint planning, ensuring a healthy, estimated, and prioritized backlog while managing macro engineering roadmaps.
• Architecture-Level Risk Mitigation: Triage and remedy complex software constraints across enterprise systems, maximizing database performance, cloud reliability, data privacy compliance, and multi-region scalability.
• Client Technical Relationship Curation: Lead formal discovery sessions, run technical retrospectives, clear cross-functional project blockers, and maintain transparent, regular risk-mitigation update syncs with client technical executives.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• 7+ years of verified professional history running commercial full-stack software development, software engineering consulting, cloud application architecture, machine learning engineering, or enterprise systems troubleshooting.
• Deep, authoritative technical command of object-oriented and functional programming patterns, distributed systems design, data storage schemas, and automated continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines.
• Expert-tier background writing production-grade microservices and building decoupled server logic arrays natively utilizing Backend programming structures (specifically covering languages like Python, Java, or TypeScript).
• Practical operational familiarity constructing scalable data ingestion pipelines, analytical data modeling, and data-warehouse processing natively leveraging Data Scientist platforms (explicitly including Databricks).
• Proven background successfully leveraging generative engineering extensions or LLM orchestration frameworks (such as LangChain) to optimize daily development workflows.
• Outstanding verbal, written, and presentation communication traits in fluent English, with an empathetic ability to lead cross-functional forums, build technical consensus, and set clean directions in the face of ambiguity.
• Location Context: Position open to qualified engineering leaders base-stationed permanently and resident within the **United States** to execute consulting operations under a remote-first framework, with optional hub collaboration privileges.

Preferred Strategic Indicators (Nice to Have)

• Prior commercial software consulting history operating inside a professional technology solutions agency, financial technology builder, digital transformation lab, or high-throughput cloud analytics startup.
• Hands-on systems administration proficiency managing containerized environments, highlighting prior exposure to DevOps, DevSecOps, and Infrastructure as Code workflows (such as Terraform or Ansible).
• Familiarity with alternative AI/ML processing models, showing experience integrating recommendation engines, natural language processing (NLP) models, computer vision systems, or predictive analytics.
• An outcome-driven personal philosophy rooted in continuous self-directed learning, an eagerness to actively mentor and share knowledge with colleagues, and a passion for community building within the tech sphere.

What We Offer

• Experience-Calibrated U.S. Geographic Salary Blueprints: High-yield full-time base salary ranges benchmarked transparently across local structures: $126,279 – $157,849 USD (Structure 1: Tampa, OH, TN, WI), $132,700 – $165,875 USD (Structure 2: Chicago, Miami, Philly, Raleigh), $141,261 – $176,576 USD (Structure 3: Austin, Boston, DC), or $147,254 – $184,068 USD (Structure 4: LA, Seattle, NYC), tailored precisely to evaluate your technical consulting authority.
• The exceptional professional canvas to directly direct, shape, and code-engineer the foundational cloud applications and machine learning pipelines power-routing digital transformation for leading international brands.
• Profound work-from-home remote parameters offering an elite remote-first philosophy, complete scheduling trust, and zero physical geographic commuting friction, with full corporate coworking space cost support globally.
• Immediate eligibility to access comprehensive premium health, dental, and vision insurance coverage options.
• Access to an outstanding Learning & Development program, featuring an annual financial stipend, dedicated study time allotments, and unlimited full-tier access to thousands of books and expert courses on the **O Reilly Learning Platform**.
• Generous family calibration rewards, providing a highly flexible Paid Time Off (PTO) vacation structure alongside 12 weeks of fully covered new parent leave for eligible employees.