Forward Deployed Application Developer
Sila Nanotechnologies · Alameda, United States · 4mo ago
About Us
We are Sila, a next-generation battery materials company. Our mission is to power the world’s transition to clean energy. To create this future, our team is building a better lithium-ion battery from the inside out today. We engineer and manufacture ground-breaking battery materials that significantly increase the energy density of batteries, while reducing their size and weight. The result? Smaller more powerful batteries that can unlock innovation in consumer devices and accelerate the mass adoption of electric cars to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. We're tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time every day, and together we're redefining what's possible. Are you ready to be a part of a team committed to changing the world?
Who You Are
You are a product-minded, forward-deployed, software application developer who bridges the gap between sophisticated data modeling and world-class user experiences. You believe that back-end data is only as valuable as the interface that makes it actionable. You are as comfortable architecting a high-performance Snowflake schema as you are crafting an intuitive React component. You thrive on being embedded with your users, translating the complex needs of battery engineers and operations into elegant software that serves as a "single source of truth."
Responsibilities and Duties
- Embedded Product Development: Work directly with Engineering, Operations, Battery Teams, Finance, and Supply Chain teams to identify bottlenecks and build bespoke software solutions that accelerate our "bits-to-atoms" cycle.
- Modern Front-End Engineering: Design and implement sophisticated, responsive user interfaces using React and modern state management libraries. Focus on creating high-density data visualizations that make complex battery performance data easy to interpret.
- Application Data Layer Architecture: Design and evolve Snowflake schemas and data models specifically optimized for high-performance application interfaces. You will ensure the data layer supports both rapid transactional workflows and deep analytical exploration.
- Data Orchestration: Utilize dbt and Airflow as your toolkit to clean, transform, and move data into your application-ready schemas, ensuring end-to-end data integrity.
- Modern Observability: Use Datadog, Sumo Logic, and StatsD to monitor user interaction patterns and application health, ensuring high availability for business-critical workflows.
- AI-Forward Features (RAG): Deploy Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) patterns to build "smart" tools that allow our engineering teams to query technical specs, experimental results, and financial data using natural language.
Knowledge and Skill Requirements
- Front-End Mastery: Expert proficiency in React, TypeScript, and modern CSS-in-JS or Tailwind. Experience with data visualization libraries (e.g. Plotly, or Bokeh) is highly preferred.
- Application Backend: Expert proficiency in Python (FastAPI, Flask)
- Application Data Modeling: Advanced experience with Snowflake and dbt. You should be able to demonstrate how you design schemas—including graph-based relationships—to solve specific application and user-workflow problems.
- User-Centric Design: You should have a clear philosophy on how to make complex data-entry and data-analysis workflows intuitive.
- Workflow Orchestration: Experience with Airflow or similar tools to manage application-specific data transformations.
- Hands-on experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform), CI/CD and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
- Practical experience building RAG architectures and integrating LLMs into production application workflows.
- Native Mobile App Development: Experience deploying native iOS applications for internal business purposes
- B.S. or M.S. in Computer Science, Human-Computer Interaction, or a related engineering field.
- 6+ years for MS, 8+ years for BS of professional software development experience, preferably in hardware product technology and/or manufacturing environments
- A proven track record of building complex internal tools for Operations, Engineering, Battery Teams, Finance, or Supply Chain teams that emphasize user-centric design and high data density.
- Strong bias for action and the ability to work autonomously in a fast-paced, multidisciplinary environment.
Physical Demands and Working Conditions
- Move long distances (such as from building to building) and be stationary for extended periods of time
- Operate a computer and other office equipment, such as a laptop, copier/printer, etc in a fixed location
The starting base pay for this role is between $152,000 and $192,000 at the time of posting. The actual base pay depends on many factors, such as education, experience, and skills. Base pay is only one part of Sila’s competitive Total Rewards package that can include benefits, perks, equity, and bonuses. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. #LI-FM1 #LI-Remote
Working at Sila
We believe that building a diverse team at Sila helps us amplify our individual talents. We are an equal opportunity employer and committed to creating an inclusive environment where good ideas are free to come from anyone. We are proud to celebrate diversity and all qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, national origin, or any other status protected by law.