Senior Software Engineer I

At Compass, our mission is to help everyone find their place in the world. Founded in 2012, we’re revolutionizing the real estate industry with our end-to-end platform that empowers residential real estate agents to deliver exceptional service to seller and buyer clients.

As a Senior Software Engineer I, you will join a world-class engineering team operating the only end-to-end platform in the real estate industry. We are building a high-caliber talent pool of Senior Engineers to lead technical initiatives across several key domain areas. For these roles, we are looking for Fullstack Engineers with a strong interest or specialization in Backend development and Frontend development

Our Key Domains & Focus Areas

Based on your background and interests, you will have the opportunity to align with one of our specialized domains:

• Compass Integrated Services (CIS): At the core of driving our next phase of growth and platform evolution, building the technology and operations that power our strategic partner services; including Title & Escrow, Home Warranty, Mortgage, and Insurance. This team empowers agents and clients across a broad national footprint to seamlessly manage the entire transaction journey through a standardized, "one-click" workflow.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM): Center yourself at the heart of our platform, designing and building the high-scale, event-driven services and seamless user interfaces that allow 300,000+ real estate agents to manage and engage with millions of clients.
• Search and Listing: Architecting the core search stack that powers the Compass platform. This domain spans from MLS and data ingestion to highly responsive consumer and agent facing search experiences like map based discovery and intelligent listing matching.
• Search and Listing: Architecting the search platform powering Compass. You will be developing distributed data pipelines for ingesting and normalizing hundreds of real-time MLS feeds (Apache Kafka/MSK,Spark/Databricks) and developing advanced search capabilities to drive the Compass search experience to new levels.
• Broker Productivity: Powers the scalability of brokerage operations by engineering a unified operating system that consolidates fragmented back-office workflows—including several back-office applications, APIs, tools and services—into a cohesive, data-driven ecosystem that eliminates manual dependencies and empowers brokerages to grow and operate profitably.

What You Will Do

• End-to-End Design & Build: Architect, build, and maintain high-performance, distributed, event-driven microservices and cloud infrastructure, while ensuring seamless integration with modern, intuitive frontend interfaces.
• Drive Technical Delivery: Independently define, decompose, and lead the delivery of complex technical projects and subsystems across the entire stack.
• Incorporate Intelligent Automation: Build and operationalize modern software patterns, including integrating AI models, data pipelines, and telemetry systems to automate workflows.
• Champion Engineering Excellence: Perform rigorous code and design reviews, write high-quality automated tests (unit, integration, and end-to-end), and continuously leave codebases cleaner and more performant than you found them.
• Own Your Domain: Act as a subject matter expert, creating clear technical documentation (architecture diagrams, runbooks, and specs) and owning your services and applications throughout their entire lifecycle.
• Collaborate & Mentor: Work closely with cross-functional stakeholders to balance requirements, resolve systemic bottlenecks, and actively mentor peers to level up the engineering team.

What We Look For

• Education: BS in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Experience: 5+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of delivering complex technical projects autonomously. (Candidates with 3+ years of exceptional, fast-tracked execution are also encouraged to apply).
• Fullstack Capabilities with a Backend Bias:
• Strong engineering fundamentals across the full stack, with a clear preference and passion for backend architecture, data systems, and API design.
• Strong proficiency in backend languages such as Go or Java.
• Professional experience with Python (highly valued for data/telemetry pipelines and AI/LLM workflows).
• Familiarity with modern frontend frameworks (e.g., React) to successfully build and connect end-to-end user experiences.
• Experience with Kafka or Ruby on Rails is a major plus.
• System Architecture: Solid hands-on experience designing and operating cloud-based microservices architectures on major cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred, GCP, or Azure).
• Modern SDLC Practices: Strong familiarity with continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, containerization, and Agile/Scrum methodologies.
• Domain Expertise (Area Dependent):
• Experience building high-throughput user workflow tools, transactional systems, dynamic user interfaces, or SaaS products.
• Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills with a strong sense of technical empathy for your end-users (whether they are real estate agents or fellow developers).

Compensation: The base pay range for this position is $149,580-$166,200 annually; however, base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Bonuses and restricted stock units may be provided as part of the compensation package, in addition to a full range of benefits. Base pay is based on market location. Minimum wage for the position will always be met.

Perks that You Need to Know About:

Participation in our incentive programs (which may include eligible cash, equity, or commissions). Plus paid vacation, holidays, sick time, parental leave, and recharge leave; medical, tele-health, dental and vision benefits; 401(k) plan; flexible spending accounts (FSAs); commuter program; life and disability insurance; Maven (a support system for new parents); Carrot (fertility benefits); UrbanSitter (caregiver referral network); Employee Assistance Program; and pet insurance.

Do your best work, be your authentic self. At Compass, we believe that everyone deserves to find their place in the world — a place where they feel like they belong, where they can be their authentic selves, where they can thrive. Our collaborative, energetic culture is grounded in our Compass Entrepreneurship Principles and our commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, growth and mobility. As an equal opportunity employer, we offer competitive compensation packages, robust benefits and professional growth opportunities aimed at helping to improve our employees' lives and careers.

Notice for California Applicants

Los Angeles County Fair Chance Notice