Senior Software Engineer, Backend at Base Power in Austin, TX

Job description

About Base Base is America’s next-generation power company. We’re rebuilding the foundation of modern civilization–electricity–by deploying a vast network of distributed batteries that is transforming today’s fragile, centralized grid into a resilient and abundant system. We are engineers, operators, and creatives solving some of the most complex, interdisciplinary challenges of our time. About the Role We're building BaseOS — the operating system that runs the modern power company. It coordinates thousands of distributed batteries, powers our internal operations, and enables us to deliver reliable, low-cost electricity at scale. As a senior, staff, or principal engineer on this team, you won't just build services — you'll define how the system works. You'll make architectural calls that other engineers build on top of, set the technical bar for the team, and take end-to-end ownership of the systems Base depends on every day. You'll be trusted to operate with minimal oversight on ambiguous, high-stakes problems — and to know which problems are worth solving in the first place. Your decisions will directly shape how power flows across the grid. What You'll Do • Own critical systems at scale: Design, build, and operate the core services BaseOS runs on. You're accountable for their reliability, performance, and long-term direction — not just their uptime today • Set architecture and standards: Make foundational decisions on system design, data models, and service boundaries across teams. Raise the bar for how the org builds and ships software • Operate across the stack: Work in Golang and Python across backend systems, APIs, and infrastructure, moving fluidly between application logic and the infrastructure underneath it • Build systems that coordinate the real world: Design workflow systems (e.g., Temporal) that manage deployments, device control, and operational processes across a growing fleet • Treat infrastructure as a product: Use Terraform and AWS to build infrastructure that's reliable and repeatable at scale, not just for one project • Work across domains: Partner directly with hardware, deployments, and operations leadership to solve problems that don't fit neatly into software — and turn real-world constraints into clean system design • Set the pace and the bar: Make decisions with imperfect information, take responsibility for outcomes, and help less-senior engineers do the same • Mentor and multiply: Level up the engineers around you through code review, design feedback, and technical leadership — your impact extends beyond your own output What You'll Bring • 6+ years of professional software development experience, with a track record of owning and shipping production systems that other engineers and teams depend on • Deep proficiency in a backend language (Go, Python, Java, or similar), with the judgment to know when "well-tested" is enough and when it isn't • Real experience building and operating distributed systems in production — you've been paged for the failure modes you now design around • Fluency with modern cloud infrastructure (AWS or GCP) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), including owning services that other teams rely on • Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform or similar) and a track record of treating infrastructure as a first-class part of the product • The ability to design systems end-to-end — from API design through implementation, operation, and eventual deprecation — with sound engineering judgment under ambiguity • Product and business intuition: you weigh implementation against user experience, operational impact, and business outcomes, and you can explain the trade-offs to non-engineers • A track record of cross-functional leadership — you've driven alignment across hardware, deployments, and operations on problems with no clean owner • High ownership without needing to be asked twice, and a track record of stepping into ambiguity rather than waiting for it to be resolved