Senior Software Engineer, Product Foundations

Who we are The real world is the next frontier, and at Metropolis, we are creating the artificial intelligence to make it responsive. We are pioneering the Recognition Economy — a future where mundane repetition disappears and being known unlocks access, comfort, and belonging everywhere you go. From transforming parking into a seamless drive-in, drive-out experience for millions of Members to expanding our intelligence layer across retail and hospitality, we are building a world that feels instinctive and magical. The future isn’t coming; it’s here, and we need builders, innovators, and problem solvers to help us create it. Who you are Metropolis is seeking a Senior Software Engineer for our Product Foundations team to architect and build Metropolis Web Services (MTWS), the composable, foundational services serving as the substrate for all current and future products across the company. In this role, you will solve complex distributed systems challenges at scale and build the technical foundation enabling us to expand into new markets and support new verticals from the ground up. Working alongside highly technical hypernerds who live and breathe distributed systems, performance optimization, developer productivity, and reliability engineering, you will collaborate across multiple technical teams including Application Development, Infrastructure, and our Advanced Technologies group to deliver remarkable, checkout-free real-world experiences. What you'll do Design and build the core services of Metropolis Web Services, the composable platform that will power multiple mobility businesses including IAM, notifications, message processing, and other critical infrastructure components Build and maintain our service mesh infrastructure, enabling secure, reliable, and observable communication between hundreds of microservices at scale Create sophisticated developer tooling, CI/CD pipelines, and platform automation that enables product teams to ship code safely and efficiently while maintaining high operational standards Make critical technical decisions about service boundaries, API design, data consistency patterns, and system reliability that affect the entire platform and multiple business lines Architect and optimize systems for high throughput and low latency to support millions of transactions across our global platform as we scale to new markets Establish monitoring, alerting, and reliability practices that ensure 99.99% uptime for mission-critical mobility infrastructure Drive architectural discussions, establish engineering best practices, and mentor other engineers while contributing directly to complex technical implementations What we're looking for 8+ years of backend software engineering experience with deep focus on distributed systems and platform infrastructure Demonstrate expert-level Java proficiency with deep understanding of JVM performance, concurrency, and ecosystem tooling Possess production experience with microservices architecture, container orchestration (Kubernetes), and cloud platforms (AWS) Exhibit strong systems thinking with a proven ability to design and implement large-scale, high-availability distributed systems that handle significant load Demonstrate observability expertise including hands-on production experience with metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting systems in high-load environments Utilize database and data systems knowledge including relational databases, event streaming (Kafka, SQS), caching strategies, and data consistency patterns Show experience with AI-powered development tools such as Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar agentic coding tools for enhanced productivity, specifically context engineering Maintain excellent technical communication with the ability to design and document complex systems, lead technical discussions, and collaborate across multiple teams While not required, these are a plus: Advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related technical field P