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Staff Engineer - Application, Cloud & Systems

Vaco
$80.00 - $100.00 / hr
401(k), retirement plan
United States, Arizona, Tempe
Nov 26, 2025

Our client is looking for a Staff Engineer who can move confidently across the application stack, cloud services, and foundational system layers. This is not an "architect-in-a-tower" position, it's a hands-on engineering role for someone who can diagnose, design, and fix complex problems that span multiple domains.

You'll partner with backend, platform, cloud, and security teams to improve scalability, reliability, and performance. You won't be living in architecture diagrams all day, but you will influence architecture decisions and help break down high-level designs into practical engineering solutions.

If you thrive in ambiguity, can go from reading logs to troubleshooting distributed systems to advising on application patterns, this is the role for you.

What You'll Do Full-Stack Systems Problem Solving
  • Dive into backend services, cloud infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and everything between to remove engineering roadblocks

  • Diagnose issues in distributed systems: performance bottlenecks, scaling failures, integration gaps

  • Debug complex failures across microservices, APIs, identity flows, and cloud components

Engineering Leadership
  • Mentor senior/junior engineers and raise the bar on engineering craft

  • Serve as a technical "adult in the room" during incidents, releases, and problem escalation

  • Translate architectural intent into workable engineering plans

Cloud & Platform Engineering
  • Support and influence cloud patterns, resource design, networking fundamentals, and service integrations

  • Contribute to Azure-related implementations (App Services, Functions, storage, identity integrations, networking basics)

  • Improve reliability, performance tuning, and observability within cloud-hosted services

CI/CD, Testing & DevOps Mindset
  • Improve continuous integration / continuous delivery pipelines (Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, or similar)

  • Promote testing maturity: unit, integration, E2E, load, and resilience testing

  • Advocate for automation-first mindset

IAM & Authorization Fundamentals
  • Understand how modern apps authenticate and authorize users

  • Work with OIDC/OAuth2, JWT, RBAC/ABAC

  • Help teams integrate identity correctly without owning security engineering

Cross-Domain Engineering Influence
  • Collaborate with architects on system design and scalability discussions

  • Partner with SRE, Cloud, Security, and Platform teams to improve system-wide reliability

  • Contribute to incident reviews and long-term remediation strategies

What You Bring Engineering Breadth
  • 7+ years as a software, systems, platform, or full-stack engineer

  • Experience in one or more backend software engineering languages - C#/.Net, NodeJS, Python, Java/JVM, Golang, etc.

  • Comfortable in backend code bases, system internals, cloud integrations, and technical debugging

Cloud Fundamentals
  • Strong familiarity with Azure (preferred) or other major cloud providers (AWS or GCP), big bonus for multi-cloud experience.

  • Understanding of: Resource models, networking basics, identity integrations, application hosting patterns, CI/CD pipelines, Observability / monitoring, etc.

System Patterns
  • Strong understanding of distributed systems principles

  • Experience with microservices, API-driven architectures, and cloud-native patterns

  • Solid grounding in reliability concepts (SLOs, failure modes, fault isolation)

Soft Skills
  • Excels at diagnosing messy technical situations

  • Communicates clearly across engineering levels

  • Helps teams simplify and unblock without ego

  • Thrives in fast-paced, ambiguous environments

Nice-to-Haves
  • Experience in both Microsoft and non-Microsoft stacks

  • Familiarity with event-driven systems or async messaging

  • Experience contributing to architectural reviews

  • Prior exposure to SRE or platform engineering

  • Knowledge of container orchestration (AKS, ECS, EKS, K8s in general)



Determining compensation for this role (and others) at Vaco/Highspring depends upon a wide array of factors including but not limited to the individual's skill sets, experience and training, licensure and certifications, office location and other geographic considerations, as well as other business and organizational needs. With that said, as required by local law in geographies that require salary range disclosure, Vaco/Highspring notes the salary range for the role is noted in this job posting. The individual may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses, and can participate in medical, dental, and vision benefits as well as the company's 401(k) retirement plan.

Vaco by Highspring values a diverse workplace and strongly encourages women, people of color, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply.

EEO Notice

Vaco by Highspring is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate against any employee or applicant for employment because of race (including but not limited to traits historically associated with race such as hair texture and hair style), color, sex (includes pregnancy or related conditions), religion or creed, national origin, citizenship, age, disability, status as a veteran, union membership, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, political affiliation, or any other protected characteristics as required by federal, state or local law.

Vaco by Highspring and its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries are committed to the full inclusion of all qualified individuals. As part of this commitment, Vaco by Highspring and its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries will ensure that persons with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodations. If reasonable accommodation is needed to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and/or to receive other benefits and privileges of employment, please contact HR@vaco.com .

Vaco by Highspring also wants all applicants to know their rights that workplace discrimination is illegal.

By submitting to this position, you agree that you will be giving Vaco by Highspring the exclusive right to present your as a candidate for the foregoing employment opportunity. You further agree that you have represented information about yourself accurately and have not affirmatively misrepresented your qualifications. You also agree to maintain as confidential, to the fullest extent permitted by law, any information you learn from Vaco by Highspring about the position and you will limit disclosure of information about the position only to the extent necessary to perform any obligations in furtherance of your application. In exchange, Vaco by Highspring agrees to exercise reasonable efforts to represent you through all solicitation, job screening and resume dispersal.

Privacy Notice

Vaco by Highspring and its parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries ("we," "our," or "Vaco by Highspring") respects your privacy and are committed to providing transparent notice of our policies.

  • California residents may access Vaco by Highspring HR Notice at Collection for California Applicants and Employees here.
  • Virginia residents may access our state specific policies here.
  • Residents of all other states may access our policies here.
  • Canadian residents may access our policies in English here and in French here.
  • Residents of countries governed by GDPR may access our policies here.
Pay Transparency Notice

Determining compensation for this role (and others) at Vaco by Highspring depends upon a wide array of factors including but not limited to:

  • the individual's skill sets, experience and training;
  • licensure and certification requirements;
  • office location and other geographic considerations;
  • other business and organizational needs.

With that said, as required by local law, Vaco by Highspring believes that the following salary range referenced above reasonably estimates the base compensation for an individual hired into this position in geographies that require salary range disclosure. The individual may also be eligible for discretionary bonuses.

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