Freelance Remote Senior Software Developer Jobs in Novato, CA

At BuildOps, we're building software purpose-built for commercial contractors. From service to projects, we help our customers run the workflows that keep buildings, businesses, and critical infrastructure operating.

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to help build and scale the product experiences and systems behind that mission. In this role, you'll work across frontend applications, backend services, APIs, and integrations that power high-impact workflows for our customers. You'll partner closely with Engineering, Product, and Design to solve complex problems, improve reliability and usability, and deliver software that creates real customer and business impact.

This role is a strong fit for someone who enjoys owning meaningful technical problems end to end, navigating ambiguity with sound judgment, and helping raise the bar for engineering quality across the team. You should be energized by building in a fast-moving environment, mentoring others, and using AI as a practical force multiplier in your day-to-day work.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and maintain high-quality product features and systems across frontend and backend applications
• Own projects through the full lifecycle, from technical design and implementation through rollout, monitoring, and long-term maintenance
• Partner with product managers, designers, and engineers to translate ambiguous problems into clear technical plans and well-scoped milestones
• Write clean, maintainable, well-tested code with a strong bias toward simplicity, reliability, and long-term extensibility
• Build user-facing experiences and supporting APIs that work well across client, service, and data boundaries
• Design systems with observability and reliability in mind, including metrics, dashboards, alerting, and health checks that help the team detect and resolve issues quickly
• Improve the performance, scalability, and resilience of the products and systems your team owns
• Proactively identify technical risks, cross-team dependencies, and sources of toil before they become execution bottlenecks
• Contribute to design reviews, technical discussions, and architecture decisions with clear thinking and sound judgment
• Mentor less-experienced engineers through code review, technical guidance, and example-setting
• Help strengthen engineering culture by sharing knowledge, improving standards, and contributing to a collaborative, high-accountability environment
• Leverage AI tools thoughtfully across development, debugging, documentation, and workflow acceleration while maintaining strong engineering judgment

What We Look For

• 5+ years of software engineering experience building and operating production systems at scale
• Strong software engineering fundamentals with experience building product features across frontend and backend systems
• Experience building reliable APIs, services, and user-facing applications in a modern production environment
• Strong software design instincts, including how to decompose complex business problems into maintainable technical solutions
• Solid understanding of databases, data modeling, and tradeoffs across relational databases
• Experience working with modern web application patterns and building polished customer-facing product experiences
• Experience owning projects with meaningful ambiguity and making good technical decisions with incomplete information
• Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally and drive alignment with stakeholders beyond your immediate team
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills, including the ability to identify root causes and simplify systems over time
• Clear written and verbal communication skills, especially in design docs, technical tradeoff discussions, and stakeholder updates
• A track record of mentoring teammates and helping raise the quality bar on engineering teams
• A strong sense of ownership, urgency, and accountability for both shipping and operating software successfully
• Comfort working in a fast-paced startup environment where priorities evolve and strong judgment matters
• Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools to improve engineering throughput, learning speed, and quality of execution
• B.S., M.S., or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field from a top university
• Ability to work a hybrid schedule with work from home on Monday and Friday and in-office collaboration Tuesday through Thursday

Nice To Have

• Experience with TypeScript, JavaScript, Python, or other modern application stacks
• Experience with React or similar frontend frameworks
• Experience with cloud infrastructure, Kubernetes, Docker, or infrastructure-as-code tooling
• Familiarity with Kafka, Redis, Elasticsearch, or other event-driven and high-throughput systems
• Experience with AWS or similar cloud platforms
• Experience building integrations, internal platform capabilities, or data pipelines
• Experience in SaaS, vertical software, or systems that support operational workflows
• Experience using Claude Code or similar AI coding agents in day-to-day development workflows           

Why BuildOps

• Build software for an industry that keeps the real world running
• Solve meaningful technical problems with clear customer and business impact
• Work across product, design, and engineering to shape experiences used every day by commercial contractors
• Join a team that values ownership, speed, quality, and thoughtful collaboration
• Help shape systems, engineering practices, and team culture as BuildOps continues to scale
• Be part of a company investing in AI-native ways of working across the business and engineering organization     

Compensation:

• $168,000 - $224,000 base salary range + annual bonus + stock options