Muck Rack
Lead Software Engineer, Content Ingestion
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Lead Software Engineer – Content Ingestion
Muck Rack is the leading SaaS platform for public relations and communications professionals. Our mission is to enable organisations to build trust, tell their stories, and demonstrate the unique value of earned media. Muck Rack’s AI-powered, comprehensive, and integrated platform streamlines the PR workflow to help businesses:
- Generate positive media coverage
- Monitor mentions to manage brand reputation
- Analyse PR’s impact on business outcomes
By combining media database, monitoring, and reporting into one dynamic platform, we empower teams to:
- Collaborate seamlessly
- Pitch effectively
- Analyse results faster and more efficiently
Founder-controlled, fully distributed, and growing sustainably, Muck Rack has received several awards for its unparalleled culture and product from organisations like Inc., Quartz, G2, and BuiltIn. We value resilience, transparency, ownership, and customer devotion, and infuse these values into everything we do.
About the Role
We’re looking for a collaborative, self-motivated Lead Software Engineer to join our growing Content Ingestion team.
As our Lead Software Engineer, you’ll help design and evolve the systems that ingest, process, and transform large volumes of unstructured content into structured, high-quality data. You’ll collaborate closely with teammates across Product, Search, Data Science, and Platform to build scalable, reliable data pipelines that power core platform experiences.
Responsibilities
- Design, build, and evolve high-throughput data pipelines that ingest and transform large volumes of unstructured content into structured and enriched datasets
- Drive technical direction and architectural decisions across ingestion systems, ensuring scalability, reliability, and long-term maintainability
- Improve data quality, correctness, and enrichment workflows to support downstream systems such as Search and Data Science
- Build and operate distributed, event-driven systems and streaming pipelines with:
- Strong observability
- Strong fault tolerance
- Partner cross-functionally with Product, Data Science, Search, and Platform teams to deliver high-quality data that powers customer-facing features
- Mentor and support engineers through:
- Code reviews
- Technical guidance
- Knowledge sharing (raising the overall engineering bar)
- Identify and lead high-impact technical initiatives, balancing speed of delivery with system stability and long-term health
Requirements
Core Experience
The following candidates will be set up for success:
- 8+ years of professional experience as a software engineer
- Experience in:
- Designing, building, and operating distributed systems
- Data pipelines and event-driven architectures at scale
- Strong proficiency in:
- Python or a similar backend programming language
- Experience with:
- Building and maintaining microservices that are reliable, observable, and scalable
- Streaming technologies, such as:
- Kafka
- Kinesis
- Similar systems
- Experience with:
- APIs and service communication patterns such as:
- gRPC
- Protocol Buffers
- APIs and service communication patterns such as:
- Experience with:
- Large-scale data systems
- High-throughput SaaS platforms
- Expertise with:
- Relational databases (e.g., MySQL, PostgreSQL)
- Search databases (e.g., Elasticsearch, OpenSearch)
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Key Technical Tradeoffs
Experience in making tradeoffs in distributed systems related to:
- Performance
- Reliability
- Maintainability
Optional (Exciting Opportunity)
If any of the following also apply, this role could be an exciting fit:
- Experience designing or optimising:
- Content ingestion systems
- ETL/ELT pipelines
- Data enrichment
- Experience improving:
- Throughput
- Reliability
- Observability in large-scale data systems
- Experience with:
- Background job processing frameworks
- Asynchronous workflows
- Experience processing:
- Multi-terabyte datasets
- High-volume event streams
- Interest in journalism, media, or the technology that supports those industries
Cultural Fit
We’re looking for candidates who demonstrate:
- Ability to communicate complex technical ideas clearly:
- To both technical and non-technical audiences
- Willingness to take ownership of their work, including:
- Proactively identifying and solving problems
- Contribution to a collaborative, supportive engineering culture through:
- Thoughtful feedback
- Mentorship
- Habits of writing:
- Clean
- Maintainable
- Well-tested
- Scalable code
- Ability to balance pragmatism with long-term thinking when making technical decisions
- Commitment to continuous learning and adapting in a fast-evolving technical environment
- Proactive incorporation of AI tools into day-to-day work to:
- Improve productivity
- Accelerate delivery
Interview Overview
Here’s what you can expect from the process. We’ll keep you informed at every step and let you know if anything changes along the way.
- Intro call with a member of our Talent Team
- A video interview with the Hiring Manager
- Peer interviews, including:
- 1-hour peer code interview
- Final conversation(s) with member(s) of our executive team
Location Preferences
We are currently prioritising candidates based in:
- Bulgaria
(Qualified candidates in the following are also encouraged to apply:)
- United Kingdom
- Ireland
Travel & Team Engagement
This role requires up to 10% travel for:
- Team collaboration
- Customer engagements
- Company events
and expects attendance at our annual company offsite (typically held in Mexico) as part of:
- Building strong connections across the fully distributed team.
Compensation (Bulgaria)
The anticipated salary range is €28,000–34,000+ annually, dependent on:
- Experience level (+ Determining our Most Competitive Offer, €34,000+)
- Skillset relevant to target CTO bandaid
- Equity consideration and prioritisation factors
Individual compensation decisions are based on:
- Overall experience and merit
- Skillsets
- Balancing internal equity relative to peers within the company
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Muck Rack recognises that the person we hire may not perfectly align with the posted experience range. If relevant, the updated salary range/title will be communicated with each candidate.
Benefits
Remote Work, Forever
- Fully distributed team with a permanent remote setup
- Home office stipend
- Phone and internet reimbursement
- Coworking membership
Team bonding:
- Virtual
- In-person (lunches, events, competitions)
Transparent & Fair Compensation
- Competitive geo-neutral pay (U.S.-standard)
- Annual reviews to ensure:
- Equity
- Market alignment
- Standardised bonus or commission structure
Financial security:
- 401(k) with employer contributions
- Equity opportunities
Health & Wellness
Comprehensive arrangements for employees and dependents:
- Medical, dental, and vision insurance
- Disability and life insurance
- 100% premium coverage for individuals on high-deductible plans
Convenience:
- 24/7 Virtual Care
- Employee Assistance Programme
- Employer-funded HSA contributions
- Other pre-tax benefits
- Quarterly wellness stipend
- Free Headspace subscription
Time Off & Family Benefits
Flexible leave policies:
- 4+ weeks of PTO
- Paid sick and mental health days
- 13 paid holidays with option to swap for personal days
- Up to 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave
Learning & Development
Opportunities for growth:
- Transparent pathways for internal mobility and promotion
- Bi-annual performance reviews
- Team workshops
- Leadership training
- Unlimited access to:
- Coursera
- O’Reilly
- 2 extra PTO days annually for learning and development
Company Culture
- Commitment to equity and valuing diverse perspectives
- Agile, founder-led collaboration and innovation culture
- Selected as trusted PR resource by 3,000+ companies worldwide
#MentalNote: Benefits reflect offerings primarily for U.S.-based employees and may vary for others to comply with local laws.
While full remote work accommodations are available, Muck Rack maintains a list of acceptable working locations based on job functions. Any restrictions will be communicated upfront.
** heimlichseninanced& note:** Muck Rack advises applicants to:
- Caution against scams impersonating Muck Rack’s HR teams
- Never share financial or other sensitive information during interviews
- Confirm follow-up emails are sent from
muckrack.comdomains only - Report suspicious communications to legal@muckrack.com
Muck Rack considers all applicants based on merit, qualifications, and business needs, irrespective of:
- Race, colour, national origin
- Religion, sex, age
- Disability, sexual orientation
- Gender identity, alienage
- Citizenship status, ancestry, marital
- Genetic predisposition or carrier status
- Veteran status, familial status
- Domestic violence victim status
- Any status/characteristic legally protected
Muck Rack does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters. Any submissions will be treated as Muck Rack property without further payment.
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