Senior Applications Engineer

Who we are Aurora’s mission is to deliver the benefits of self-driving technology safely, quickly, and broadly. The Aurora Driver will create a new era in mobility and logistics, one that will bring a safer, more efficient, and more accessible future to everyone. At Aurora, you will tackle massively complex problems alongside other passionate, intelligent individuals, growing as an expert while expanding your knowledge. For the latest news from Aurora, visit aurora.tech or follow us on LinkedIn. What we are looking for Aurora hires talented people with diverse backgrounds who are ready to help build a transportation ecosystem that will make our roads safer, get crucial goods where they need to go, and make mobility more efficient and accessible for all. This isn't a standard administration role. We are looking for a highly technical Senior Application Engineer who deeply understands application architecture, cloud infrastructure, and custom application software development. You will join a small, agile team with the mandate to own our critical enterprise applications end-to-end. You don't necessarily need to know our specific vendor tools on day one; instead, you need the architectural fundamentals to rapidly learn any application, look under the hood, and design bulletproof integrations that weave them together into a highly secure, fault-tolerant digital thread. In this role you will Application Architecture & Ownership: Own the end-to-end health, infrastructure, and deployment architecture for our mission-critical enterprise applications. You will manage the underlying stack, including AWS (EC2/S3), application servers (e.g., Tomcat), and relational databases. Reliable Integrations & ETL: Design and build robust integrations across our ecosystem. You will build the error-handling, caching, and retry logic to ensure that if an API call drops or a payload fails, the system recovers gracefully without data loss. Middleware & Automation: Leverage enterprise iPaaS middleware (like Workato) and write custom backend code (Python, Java) to automate complex, cross-functional workflows and replace manual data entry. Security & Resilience: Architect highly secure workflows, manage role-based access controls, and design disaster recovery (DR) and deployment strategies (like Blue-Green deployments) to ensure zero downtime. Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner directly with mechanical, electrical, and software engineering teams to understand their workflows, unblock their bottlenecks, and provide creative, scalable technical solutions. Custom Development: Write custom backend logic and scripts when out-of-the-box software configurations hit their limits, and explore how to incorporate GenAI to accelerate workflows. Required qualifications Experience: 8+ years of experience as an Application Engineer, Software Engineer, or Systems Architect managing, building, and integrating complex enterprise applications. Architectural Fundamentals: Deep understanding of modern application architecture, distributed systems, and integration patterns (REST APIs, webhooks, asynchronous messaging, event-driven architectures). Development Skills: Strong hands-on coding and scripting proficiency (Java, Python, or JavaScript - libraries and frameworks) with a focus on backend data processing, transformations and API development. Infrastructure & Cloud: Solid experience managing application infrastructure on AWS, navigating Linux environments, managing web/app servers (e.g., Apache, Tomcat), and querying relational databases (MS SQL, PostgreSQL, or Oracle). Systems Thinker: The ability to rapidly learn new, highly complex vendor applications, understand their underlying data models, and figure out how to scale them safely. Desirable qualifications Domain Knowledge: Experience integrating and managing Hardware Engineering, Manufacturing, QMS, ERP or PLM systems (such as 3DEXPERIENCE, Arena, Cadence, Jama, or Jira). Data Models: Familiarity with complex engineering data structures, such as multi-level BOMs (eBOM to mBOM), product lifecycles, and configuration management. Middleware: Direct experience building custom connectors in Workato, Boomi, or MuleSoft and strong application integrations experience. The base salary range for this position is $127,000 - $185,000 per Year. Aurora’s pay ranges are determined by role, level, and location. Within the range, the successful candidate’s starting base pay will be determined based on factors including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, relevant education or training, and market conditions. These ranges may be modified in the future. The successful candidate will also be eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and benefits. Working at Aurora At Aurora, we bring together extraordinarily talented and experienced people united by the strength of our values. We operate with integrity, set outrageous goals, and build a culture where we win together — all without any jerks. We believe in-person work increases collaboration, empathy and our ability to lead effectively. As a result, we operate in a hybrid work environment where Aurorans are in office at least 3 days per week. Our Careers page provides insight into what it is like to work at Aurora, and you can find all the latest updates in our Newsroom. Our commitment to safety At the core of everything we do is our commitment to safety. Building best-in-class self-driving technology will take time, and we believe that each employee at Aurora has a role in contributing to safety, every step of the way. Aurora expects commitment to our safety policies from every employee, and seeks candidates who take an active responsibility, can contribute to building an atmosphere of trust, and invest in the organization’s long-term success by prioritizing working safely, no matter what. Our commitment to inclusion Aurora considers candidates without regard to their race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, pregnancy status, parent or caregiver status, ancestry, political affiliation, veteran and/or military status, physical or mental disability, or any other status protected by federal or state law. Aurora considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law. We are also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at careersiteaccommodations@aurora.tech. For California applicants, information collected and processed as part of your application and any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Aurora’s California Employment Privacy Policy.