Position Description

About Us

We’re Blue River, a team of innovators driven to create intelligent machinery that solves monumental problems for our customers. We empower our customers – farmers, construction crews and foresters - to implement safer and more sustainable solutions, driving increased profitability and with less reliance on scarce labor. We believe that focusing on the small stuff – pixel-by-pixel and task-by-task - leads to big gains. With our partners at John Deere, we have the ability to bring innovative computer vision, machine learning, robotics, and product management solutions to scale production, maximizing their potential impact.

Our people are at the heart of what we do. Through cross-discipline collaboration, this mission-driven and daring team is eager to define the new frontier of mobile robotics. We are always asking hard questions, rapidly iterating, and getting our boots in the field and on-site to figure it out. We won’t give up until we’ve made a tangible and positive impact on the planet.

Blue River Technology is based in Santa Clara, CA.

About our Product - See & Spray

SEE AND SPRAY ULTIMATE reduces the amount of herbicide used in major growing operations, it lessens chemical run-off into waterways and improves our global climate situation.  John Deere's agricultural self-propelled sprayers will leverage AI and Software built by the team you'll be joining. Working hand in hand with John Deere, the world's largest farming equipment manufacturer, means you’ll impact the process of farmers across the globe. Come help us turn rivers blue!

Position Description

Blue River Technology is seeking an experienced Software Manager to lead our Production Software teams. This organization is composed of a diverse set of engineers experienced in Software Architecture, Data Science, Visualization, Data Pipeline and Developer Operations. These teams are responsible for supporting our Embedded Software, Robotics Software, CVML and Product organizations. They do this in a variety of ways: ensuring the infrastructure necessary to capture and process field performance is humming, building visualization tools, optimizing our build infrastructure and inventing new tools to adapt to new challenges.

You’ll run teams that are critical to our growing organization and product lines. Our fleet of next generation sprayers are growing at an exciting pace; that means more data, more edge cases, more features, more fun. Join our team that is facing the challenges that come with success - enabling us to reduce chemical waste on farms. 

In this role, you’ll support your teams by  

• Developing a Technical Vision; seeing and avoiding the bumps before we hit them
• Coaching junior, senior, principal engineers and technical leaders
• Managing interfaces with John Deere and in-house Cloud Platform teams
• Strategically support key high priority efforts, while focusing on long term initiatives
• Partnering with Engineering & Product leadership in roadmap development

You’re passionate about high quality software and building a flourishing coding culture. While processes are important to you, you know these processes only work when they enable the team(s) to work smoothly. You’re also a people manager who cares about their team, building relationships and cross-org collaborations. 

Our team is highly adaptable and always changing to meet the needs of our product. You’ll play a critical part in growing and adopting our software organization.

This position can be fulfilled remotely but will entail roughly 10% travel time to our Santa Clara office, with annual trips to meet with John Deere collaborators and leadership in Iowa.

Required Experience:

• Relevant Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 5+ years of software engineering experience; with relevant experience as a data pipeline, robotics software, or fullstack engineer.
• 5+ years of leading and managing a team of software engineers, providing mentorship, guidance, and support throughout the development process.
• Strong technical background in software development, including proficiency in programming languages such as at least one of C++, Python, Golang, JavaScript.
• Comfortable working closely with and guiding a variety of software periphery teams such as Developer Operations, Data Science, Embedded devices or Robotics or Machine Learning.
• Ability to present technical information in a clear and concise manner to executives and non-technical leaders.
• Effective communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate with diverse stakeholders.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities, with a focus on delivering high-quality software solutions.
• Excellent leadership and team management skills, with the ability to motivate and inspire a high-performing team.
• Has delivered products or core pieces of infrastructure for product lines.

Preferred Experience:

• Has worked with Robotic or Machine Learning product lines.
• An understanding or experience with any of: build systems, virtualization technologies, cloud infrastructure, data pipelines or data science.

At Blue River, we’re passionate about creating an inclusive workplace that promotes and values diversity.  While we have more work to do to advance diversity and inclusion, we’re investing in our programs, including recruiting, mentorship, career development, and learning & development to ensure they support our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion goals.

We support each employee in living a full life, enabling a thriving career, and accomplishing a meaningful, challenging mission while collaborating with incredible people. We are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align completely with the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway.

We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, gender, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request an accommodation.

The US base salary range for this position is $160,000-$282,000, along with eligibility for Blue River’s bonus and benefit programs.

Our salary ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, individual pay is determined by work location and additional factors, including job-related skills, experience, and relevant education or training. Your recruiter can share more about the specific salary range for your location during the hiring process.

During the recruitment process, we may identify an alternative role or level which you are more suited to. If your ideal role at Blue River differs from the advertised position, we will provide an updated pay range as soon as possible during the hiring process.

Blue River offers competitive compensation and benefits, including a great 401(K) match. We believe in a work life balance and offer generous Paid Time Off and Sick Leave as well as Paid Parental Leave and an adoption benefit. Subsidized lunches, flexible work hours, CalTrain passes (with mobile Wi-Fi!) and a collaborative and supportive environment also contribute to making Blue River a great place to work.

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