Staff Software Engineer at ICEYE in Espoo, Uusimaa, Finland

Role highlights: - Staff Software Engineer - Location: Espoo, Finland - Department: Business Automation (Customer-facing Systems and Interfaces) - Reports to: Senior Engineering Manager - Employment type: Permanent - Workplace model: Hybrid, 3 days at the office - Employment is subject to applicable security screening (incl. SUPO) Why this role matters: As a Staff Software Engineer – API Platform, you will be the technical owner of our API platform within ICEYE’s engineering domain responsible for customer-facing systems and interfaces. Our customers integrate directly with the APIs we build to task our satellite fleet, access SAR imagery, and drive critical decisions. Those APIs need to be something they can trust unconditionally. You will provide hands-on technical leadership across the domain, shaping how we design, build, version, and operate APIs for the long term. We ship to cloud environments on a daily cadence and to on-premises environments as packaged, versioned monthly releases. Many of the underlying services we integrate with are fast-moving or imperfect, and your role is to ensure that uncertainty never reaches our customers. This is a senior individual contributor role with no people management responsibility. Your impact comes through technical vision, pragmatic judgment, and raising the bar for the engineers around you through pairing, design reviews, and leading by example. You help others grow without making their growth depend on you. Our primary development language is Go. We use PostgreSQL for storage and NATS for event-based communication, running on Kubernetes in both cloud (AWS) and on-premises environments. We also use Cursor, Devin, and other LLM-based tools heavily in our daily work, and value engineers who are comfortable occasionally contributing to frontend development using TypeScript and React. Who We Are ICEYE delivers space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to governments and allied nations. This includes sovereign and turnkey ISR missions leveraging ICEYE’s world-leading synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite technology, as well as access to data from the world’s largest SAR satellite constellation. These capabilities enable partners to detect and respond to critical changes anywhere on Earth with unprecedented speed and accuracy, day or night and in any weather, supported by ultra high-resolution imagery and high-frequency revisits. As a trusted partner for defense, intelligence, security, and maritime domain awareness, ICEYE’s near real-time data creates a tactical advantage for mission-critical operations. Designed for dual use, the platform also serves civil protection and commercial users for natural-catastrophe intelligence, insurance, maritime monitoring including oil-spill detection, and finance, contributing to global security and community resilience. ICEYE is headquartered in Finland and operates globally across Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific. We have more than 900 employees, united by a shared vision: improving life on Earth by becoming the global source of truth in Earth Observation. Your day-to-day responsibilities - Own the technical vision and architecture of the API platform, including versioning strategy, stability contracts, compatibility guarantees, and the abstractions that protect customers from churn in underlying services - Write, review, and ship production code in Go while leading through hands-on technical contribution - Define and drive the engineering practices that make our APIs trustworthy, including contract testing, graceful degradation, clear error semantics, and honest deprecation cycles - Make observability a first-class concern by designing for debuggability using our LGTM stack (Loki, Grafana, Tempo, Mimir) - Ensure API quality and operational clarity across both cloud and on-premises deployment models - Make deliberate and well-reasoned technical decisions by balancing architectural improvement with pragmatic delivery needs - Mentor engineers across the domain through pairing, design reviews, and structured feedback while raising the collective engineering bar without becoming a bottleneck - Collaborate with product managers, engineering teams, and internal stakeholders to align technical direction with business priorities and customer needs What we’re looking for Must haves: - Demonstrated experience designing and operating customer-facing APIs at production scale - Deep understanding of distributed systems reliability, including failure modes, graceful degradation, idempotency, and how to build systems that remain stable when dependencies do not - Strong experience with observability and production operations using tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, or the LGTM stack - Experience working across both cloud and on-premises environments using technologies such as Kubernetes, Docker, and Terraform - Strong hands-on software engineering skills in Go or a similar backend programming language - Ability to make long-term technical decisions by balancing architectural investment against delivery needs using sound engineering judgment - A multiplier mindset with the ability to mentor and elevate engineers around you without gatekeeping - Hands-on experience using AI-powered engineering tools such as Cursor, Devin, Claude Code, or similar Nice to haves: - Experience with authentication and authorization standards such as OAuth, OpenID Connect, and JWT - Familiarity with API gateway patterns, developer portal tooling, or SDK design - Ability and willingness to occasionally contribute to frontend development using TypeScript and React - Experience working with geospatial technologies such as PostGIS or GeoJSON - Background in defense, intelligence, or other environments where customer trust and operational continuity are critical - Interest in space, Earth observation, or satellite operations Application Process - TA Partner Screen Call - Hiring Manager Interview - Technical Interview - Values & Fit Interview - Final Interview with SVP of Engineering Working at ICEYE At ICEYE, you’ll join a diverse and highly engaged team united by the ambition to make the impossible possible. As a global scale-up, we combine speed and ambition with the opportunity to take real ownership from day one. Your growth, wellbeing, and success are a priority, with continuous professional development, training opportunities, and a culture where collaboration is how we win. How We Work (Our Values) Make the impossible possible: We set ambitious goals and stay calm under pressure. We bring grit, optimism, and ownership when things get hard, and we keep moving until we find a way. - Be curious: Go deep, ask questions, listen carefully, and think critically. Understand the why behind decisions. - See the big picture: Stay close to what’s happening across the company so you can make better decisions. Consider how your work affects others. - Drive effective teamwork: Create psychological safety, invite different perspectives, and build inclusive teams. There are no bad questions. - Act as one team: We win together. We match tasks to the right owner and stay agile as priorities shift. - Have fun: What we do matters and it should be enjoyable. Celebrate progress, take pride in results, and share the wins. Benefits Our benefits are designed to support your health and wellbeing, at work and beyond. We keep improving them based on employee feedback, and offerings vary by location. Talent Acquisition will confirm what applies for this role and location during the process. Base salary range for this position is 8 500 - 10 500 € per month (gross), depending on experience, and will be negotiated individually. Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion We want ICEYE to be a place where people can be themselves and do great work. Different backgrounds and perspectives make us stronger, which is why we work to create an environment where people feel included, respected, and able to speak up. Whatever your background, we want you to bring your authentic self to the table. We’re committed to fair, inclusive hiring and equal opportunity. Everyone is welcome to apply. If you need any adjustments or support during the recruitment process, tell us and we will do our best to help. Apply now to start your ICEYE journey and help us continue to make the impossible possible together. Read more about ICEYE and working with us at iceye.com http://iceye.com.