Staff Engineer

Locus The Software Factory

Staff Engineer

Who We Are

We're Locus. We move the world's goods.

Our algorithms have optimised over 1 billion deliveries. We're the enterprise TMS trusted by IKEA, Unilever, UPS and some of the largest supply chains on the planet. Backed by Ingka Group (IKEA's parent), we're building a composable, multi-modal transportation management system that's redefining logistics technology.

We're not hiring to fill seats. We're hiring builders who build for other builders.

What You'll Do

You own core systems end to end. Architecture to production. Here's what that looks like day to day:

Own one or more core systems end-to-end reliability, performance, scalability. Not just the code. The whole thing.

Lead the design and architecture of complex, distributed systems, frameworks, and libraries aligned with Locus's technical strategy.

Drive engineering operational excellence, define roadmaps for system reliability, observability, and performance improvements.

Analyze and optimize existing systems for latency, throughput, and efficiency, ensuring they perform at scale.

Work closely with a team both Biological and Digital Product, Data, and Infrastructure to translate business requirements into technical deliverables.

Mentor and guide engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence, ownership, and continuous learning.

Establish and uphold coding standards, conduct design and code reviews, and promote best practices across teams.

Stay ahead of the curve on emerging technologies, frameworks, and patterns to strengthen Locus's technology foundation.

Contribute to hiring, identify and attract top-tier engineering talent.

What You Bring

Must-Haves

Strong CS fundamentals, data structures, algorithms, design patterns, and problem-solving.

8+ years of experience in backend development with Java, Spring/Spring Boot, and microservices architecture.

Hands-on experience with SQL/NoSQL databases, distributed systems, and REST/gRPC APIs.

Proven track record of building and maintaining scalable, reliable, high-performance systems.

Solid understanding of concurrency, multithreading, and asynchronous processing.

Experience with cloud-native environments (AWS/GCP), CI/CD, and observability tools.

Deep understanding of software design principles, architecture patterns, and performance optimization.

Strong sense of code quality, maintainability, and observability.

Excellent communication skills, able to articulate technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Self-driven, curious, and adaptable, thrives in ambiguity, doesn't wait to be told what needs fixing.

Strong Signals - We Actively Look for These

Degrees don't tell us much. These do:

You've architected something that survived real scale and you know exactly what broke along the way.

You've built something on your own time open source, side project, internal tool.

You've contributed to a top open-source project.

You've filed a patent or published research.

You've written technical content others reference, or spoken at a conference.

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

We don't fill seats. We hire builders who build for other builders.

What We Don't Care About

Which college you went to. Seriously.

Whether your resume has Big Tech logos.

How many years you've held exactly this job title.

We care about what you built, why you couldn't 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, optimisation engines (routing, ETA, slotting)

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

Why Locus is different:

This isn't a perks list. It's a contract between Locus and people who build.

01. 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!

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

03. 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 you're here, but even after you leave.

04. 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.

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

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

07. 1 Billion Deliveries on Your Resume: You can truthfully say: "My code optimized 1B+ deliveries across 30+ countries." We verify it.

08. Alumni Network That Doesn't 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?

Send us:

Your GitHub / portfolio / anything you've built - required. More important than your resume.

A one-liner on why Locus interests you.

Email: careers@locus.sh

"We don't hire the best people and tell them what to build. We hire builders and get out of their way." - Locus Engineering