Lead Software Engineer Jobs in California

INTRODUCTION

BMC empowers nearly 80% of the Forbes Global 100 to accelerate business value, faster than humanly possible. Our industry-leading portfolio unlocks human and machine potential to drive business growth, innovation, and sustainable success. BMC does this in a simple and optimized way by connecting people, systems, and data that power the world’s largest organizations so they can seize a competitive advantage.

We are looking for a Lead Product Developer to help build our next-generation Agentic-AI data management platform from 0–1. This is a hands-on, delivery-focused role for a senior engineer who thrives in early-stage environments, wears multiple hats, and takes pride in shipping real products used by external enterprise customers.

You will work closely with an established architect and other senior engineers, contribute to technical and architectural decisions, and spend the majority of your time designing, building, and evolving the product itself. Success is measured by the quality, reliability, and extensibility of what ships, and by steady progress toward a production-ready MVP.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Here is how, through this role, you will contribute to BMC’s and your own success:

• Product Engineering (Primary Focus): Design, build, and iterate on core components of a data automation and data management platform, taking features from concept through production in a 0–1 product environment.

• Hands-on Development: Spend most of your time writing high-quality Python code, reviewing pull requests, and improving existing systems, with a strong bias toward simplicity, maintainability, and delivery.

• Technical & Architecture Collaboration: Work alongside the product architect to contribute to system design discussions, evaluate trade-offs, and evolve the technical direction as the product matures and real customer constraints emerge.

• Data Platform Capabilities: Implement capabilities around data orchestration, data lineage, observability, governance, and resilience, with a practical understanding of how enterprise customers operate data platforms at scale.

• Integration & Cloud Enablement: Build integrations with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and enterprise systems to support automation and deployment in real-world customer environments.

• Engineering Practices: Contribute to pragmatic engineering standards, including CI/CD, automated testing, and DevOps practices, appropriate for a fast-moving, early-stage product team.

• Product Collaboration: Partner closely with product management to translate product requirements into working software, provide implementation feedback, and support rapid learning from customer feedback.

• Ownership & Execution: Take ownership of features and subsystems end-to-end, proactively identifying gaps and moving work forward even when requirements are incomplete or evolving.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

To ensure you’re set up for success, you will bring the following skillset & experience:

• 8+ years of professional software development experience, including time spent building and shipping B2B products for external customers.

• Strong proficiency in Python, with hands-on experience delivering and maintaining production-grade systems.

• Good system design skills, with the ability to make sensible trade-offs between short-term delivery and longer-term platform evolution.

• Comfort operating in ambiguous, startup-style environments where priorities evolve and engineers are expected to lead through execution.

• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders.

• Broad technical exposure (depth not required in all areas):

• Experience working with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Familiarity with containerization and distributed systems (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, microservices).

• Exposure to a range of data technologies such as relational databases, cloud data warehouses, data transformation frameworks, and object storage.

• Working knowledge of CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

Whilst these are nice to have, our team can help you develop in the following skills:

• Solid experience with data products, particularly in one or more of the following areas:

• Data orchestration

• Data management platforms

• Data lineage, observability, or governance

• Experience building or extending workflow orchestration platforms (e.g., Airflow, Dagster, Prefect), including custom operators and production deployments.

• Experience contributing to or commercializing open-source software.

• Familiarity with AI/ML concepts, including how emerging technologies (such as LLMs) could enhance automation or developer productivity in data platforms.

COMPENSATION

• The range listed is just one component of BMC's employee compensation package. Other rewards may include a variable plan and country specific benefits.

• At BMC, it is not typical for an individual to be hired at /near the top of the range. A reasonable estimate of the current range is $148,800 - $248,000.

• Min salary: 148,800

• Mid point salary: 198,400

• Max salary: 248,000

• Min Salary - NEW: 152,925

• Max Salary - NEW: 254,875

LOCATION

Location: Santa Clara, California

Additional Locations: Milpitas - Mountain View - East Foothills - Los Altos - Stanford - Santa Clara

TRAVEL

You may occasionally be required to travel for business.

EEO STATEMENT

BMC is committed to equal opportunity employment regardless of race, age, sex, creed, color, religion, citizenship status, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, national origin, disability, marital status, pregnancy, disabled veteran or status as a protected veteran. If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application and hiring process, visit the accommodation request page.

BMC Software maintains a strict policy of not requesting any form of payment in exchange for employment opportunities, upholding a fair and ethical hiring process.

If after reading the above, you’re unsure if you meet the qualifications of this role but are deeply excited about BMC and this team, we still encourage you to apply! We want to attract talents from diverse backgrounds and experience to ensure we face the world together with the best ideas!