Lead Software Engineer - Content Ingestion

We're looking for a collaborative, self-motivated Lead Software Engineer to join our growing Content Ingestion team. As our Lead Software Engineer, Content Ingestion, you’ll help design and evolve the systems that transform high volumes of unstructured data into valuable insights for our customers. You’ll collaborate with teammates across Product and Engineering to scale our ingestion pipeline and ensure our platform remains fast, reliable, and data-rich.

What You’ll do:

• Design, build, and maintain the core systems that power Muck Rack’s content ingestion pipeline

• Lead technical design and architecture discussions that improve data processing, scalability, and reliability

• Collaborate with Product, Data Science, and Platform teams to deliver high-quality, structured data that supports customer workflows

• Mentor engineers on the team through code reviews, technical guidance, and knowledge sharing

• Drive continuous improvement in code quality, testing, security, and performance

• Take ownership of project delivery, ensuring initiatives are completed with a balance of speed and stability

• Help shape engineering best practices that make development more efficient across teams

To be set up for success in this role, you’ll need to have:

• 8+ years of professional experience as a software engineer

• Expertise with Python or a similar programming language

• Experience with Django or a comparable web framework (FastAPI, Flask, etc.)

• Experience building and maintaining microservices that are reliable, observable, and scalable

• Experience with Kafka or related streaming technologies

• Experience gRPC, protobuf

• Experience with large-scale data systems (multi-terabyte) or high-traffic SaaS applications

• Expertise with relational or search databases such as MySQL, Postgres, or Elasticsearch/OpenSearch

If any of the below also describe you, this could be an exciting opportunity:

• Experience designing or optimizing content ingestion pipelines or distributed data workflows

• Experience with background job processing frameworks

• Experience scaling systems that handle significant data throughput

• Interest in journalism, media, or the technology that supports those industries

In addition, we’re always looking for candidates who:

• Have excellent communication skills and can explain complex ideas clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences

• Take ownership of their work, proactively identifying and solving issues without waiting for direction

• Foster a collaborative and supportive engineering culture by providing thoughtful, constructive feedback

• Take pride in writing clean, readable, and testable code that remains maintainable over time

• Balance pragmatism with long-term thinking, managing complexity and technical debt thoughtfully

• Embrace curiosity and continual growth

Interview Overview

Here’s what you can expect from our process. We’ll keep you informed at every step and let you know if anything changes along the way.

• Intro call with a member of our Talent Team

• A video interview with the Hiring Manager

• Peer interviews, including a 45-minute code interview

• Final conversation(s) with member(s) of our executive team

Salary

In the US, the base salary for this role is between $170,000 and $200,000, depending on skills and experience. Total compensation for this role consists of base salary, a quarterly bonus plan, and equity. 

We take a geo-neutral approach to compensation within the US, meaning that we pay based on job function and level, not location. For all other countries, we have competitive pay bands based on market standards.

Individual compensation decisions are based on a number of factors, including experience level, skillset, and balancing internal equity relative to peers at the company. We expect the majority of the candidates who are offered roles at our company to fall healthily throughout the range based on these factors. We recognize that the person we hire may be less experienced (or more senior) than this job description as posted. If that ends up being the case, the updated salary range will be communicated with you as a candidate.