Developer Experience Jobs for OPT Students
Developer Experience jobs on OPT sit at the intersection of software engineering and technical advocacy, making them a strong fit for F-1 students with STEM-designated degrees. Most roles qualify for the 24-month STEM OPT extension. Employers typically require hands-on coding ability alongside documentation and community skills.
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Red Cell Partners is an incubation firm building and investing in rapidly scalable technology-led companies that are bringing revolutionary advancements to market in three distinct practice areas: healthcare, cyber, and national security. United by a shared sense of duty and deep belief in the power of innovation, Red Cell is developing powerful tools and solutions to address our Nation’s most pressing problems.
About Trase
Co-founded in 2023 by Joe Laws and Grant Verstandig, Trase Systems is AI, Uncomplicated. Trase empowers enterprise leaders to harness the full potential of AI without the associated complexity and risks. We are an end-to-end solution for deploying, managing, and optimizing AI in the enterprise. Our platform specializes in bridging the “last mile” of AI adoption, unlocking AI's full potential while driving efficiency and significant cost savings. Trase is at the forefront of AI Agent innovation, topping the Hugging Face GAIA Leaderboard for Generalized AI Assistants, ahead of industry giants such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI. We are leveraging our cutting-edge technologies to develop mission-critical agentic applications in complex industries such as Healthcare, Oil & Gas, and National Security.
About The Role
Location: Seattle, WA area
As a Staff Developer Experience Engineer (DevEx), you will own the systems, tooling, and workflows that enable engineers to build, test, and ship on Trase OS quickly and safely. As the first DevEx hire, you will build the base of the platform and team. This is a core platform engineering role, not internal tooling support. You will design and operate the development environment, build systems, and integration infrastructure that allow teams to work effectively in a distributed, multi-service system with strict reliability and security constraints. Your work directly determines engineering velocity, system safety, and the ability to scale the team without increasing risk.
Why this role is needed
Trase OS is a complex, evolving platform with long-lived workflows, multiple services, and deployments across environments with varying security requirements. As system complexity grows, developer friction and release risk become the primary bottlenecks. Without strong DevEx ownership:
- Cross-service changes become slow and error-prone
- Integration issues surface late (or in production)
- Local development diverges from production reality
- Each team reinvents workflows instead of building on shared foundations
This role exists to:
- Create paved roads for development and testing
- Ensure engineers can make changes confidently across services and environments
- Turn platform complexity into repeatable, reliable developer workflows
You will work on:
- A shared platform powering all Trase deployments
- Multi-service systems with complex integration points
- Development and testing workflows that must reflect real production behavior
- Tooling that enables safe iteration in security- and compliance-sensitive environments
You will:
- Design and maintain local development environments that mirror production behavior as closely as possible
- Build and operate build systems, CI pipelines, and test orchestration for multi-service systems
- Own integration and end-to-end testing infrastructure, including:
- Test environments and fixtures
- Cross-service test coordination
- Flake detection and reduction
- Develop internal tooling (CLI, SDKs, scaffolding) that standardizes how engineers interact with the platform
- Create repeatable workflows for building, testing, and deploying changes across services
- Improve developer feedback loops (build times, test reliability, debugging workflows)
- Partner with DevOps/SRE to ensure development workflows align with production reliability and deployment systems
- Establish and maintain runbooks, templates, and onboarding systems that reduce ramp time and inconsistency
Staff-level technical leadership
- Define and drive the developer experience strategy across Trase OS
- Establish standards for:
- Build and test systems
- Local development environments
- Cross-service integration workflows
- Identify and eliminate systemic sources of developer friction
- Partner with platform and product engineers to ensure new systems are designed with operability and testability in mind
- Mentor engineers and raise the bar for engineering productivity and development ergonomics
Qualifications
Required
- 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with significant focus on developer tooling, build systems, or platform engineering
- Experience working in multi-service or distributed systems environments
- Strong experience with:
- CI/CD systems and build tooling
- Test infrastructure (integration / E2E)
- Developer tooling (CLIs, SDKs, scaffolding)
- Strong software engineering fundamentals (ability to build and maintain internal platforms/tools)
- Proven ability to improve developer velocity and system reliability simultaneously
- Experience driving cross-team technical initiatives
- Experience integrating LLMs into developer tooling, build systems, or internal platforms to improve engineering productivity
Nice to have
- Experience designing local-first or production-like dev environments (e.g., containerized or ephemeral environments)
- Experience reducing test flakiness at scale
- Familiarity with observability tooling for debugging developer workflows
- Experience working in regulated or security-sensitive environments
Benefits
- 100% employer-paid, comprehensive health care including medical, dental, and vision for you and your family.
- Paid maternity and paternity for 14 weeks at employees' normal pay.
- Unlimited PTO, with management approval.
- Opportunities for professional development and continued learning with educational reimbursements.
- Optional 401K, FSA, and equity incentives available.
- Mental health benefits through TARA Mind.
Some travel is required. If you want to be on the cutting edge of technology, building AI solutions for the future, and are up for a challenge, let’s talk!
Salary Range: $170,000-230,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience, skills, and other factors.
We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer: You’ll receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or on the basis of disability.
Our Red Cell Partners Benefits:
For full-time roles
- Career track opportunity with potential for rapid advancement with strong performance as the firm grows
- 100% employer paid, comprehensive health care including medical, dental, and vision for you and your family.
- Paid maternity and paternity for 14 weeks at employees' normal pay.
- Unlimited PTO, with management approval.
- Opportunities for professional development and continued learning.
- Optional 401K, FSA, and equity incentives available.
- Mental health benefits are available through Tara Mind.
- Cost effective GLP-1 solutions available through Crux.
We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer: You’ll receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or on the basis of disability.
Applicant Data Disclosure
By submitting an application, you acknowledge that Red Cell Partners, LLC ("Red Cell") uses third-party service providers to facilitate its recruitment and hiring processes. These providers include applicant tracking systems, candidate verification platforms, and fraud detection tools (collectively, "Hiring Platforms"). Your application materials, including your résumé, cover letter, work samples, responses to application questions, and any other information you submit, may be transmitted to and processed by these Hiring Platforms for the following purposes:
- Managing and administering your application throughout the hiring process;
- Verifying the accuracy and authenticity of application materials, including by cross-referencing information you provide against publicly available sources and proprietary databases;
- Identifying indicators of potentially fraudulent, fabricated, or materially misleading application content, including but not limited to discrepancies between submitted materials and publicly available professional profiles, geographic anomalies, and fabricated work histories.
Applications that are flagged through this process as containing indicators of fraud or material misrepresentation may be declined from further consideration. If you have questions about the status of your application or the evaluation process, please contact talent@redcellpartners.com.
Red Cell requires its Hiring Platform providers to process your information solely for the purposes described above and in accordance with applicable law. Your information will be retained only for as long as necessary to fulfill these purposes and any applicable legal obligations, after which it will be deleted in accordance with Red Cell's data retention policies.
For more information about how your data is used, please refer to our Privacy Policy and Applicant Privacy Notice.
About us
Red Cell Partners is an incubation firm building and investing in rapidly scalable technology-led companies that are bringing revolutionary advancements to market in three distinct practice areas: healthcare, cyber, and national security. United by a shared sense of duty and deep belief in the power of innovation, Red Cell is developing powerful tools and solutions to address our Nation’s most pressing problems.
About Trase
Co-founded in 2023 by Joe Laws and Grant Verstandig, Trase Systems is AI, Uncomplicated. Trase empowers enterprise leaders to harness the full potential of AI without the associated complexity and risks. We are an end-to-end solution for deploying, managing, and optimizing AI in the enterprise. Our platform specializes in bridging the “last mile” of AI adoption, unlocking AI's full potential while driving efficiency and significant cost savings. Trase is at the forefront of AI Agent innovation, topping the Hugging Face GAIA Leaderboard for Generalized AI Assistants, ahead of industry giants such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI. We are leveraging our cutting-edge technologies to develop mission-critical agentic applications in complex industries such as Healthcare, Oil & Gas, and National Security.
About The Role
Location: Seattle, WA area
As a Staff Developer Experience Engineer (DevEx), you will own the systems, tooling, and workflows that enable engineers to build, test, and ship on Trase OS quickly and safely. As the first DevEx hire, you will build the base of the platform and team. This is a core platform engineering role, not internal tooling support. You will design and operate the development environment, build systems, and integration infrastructure that allow teams to work effectively in a distributed, multi-service system with strict reliability and security constraints. Your work directly determines engineering velocity, system safety, and the ability to scale the team without increasing risk.
Why this role is needed
Trase OS is a complex, evolving platform with long-lived workflows, multiple services, and deployments across environments with varying security requirements. As system complexity grows, developer friction and release risk become the primary bottlenecks. Without strong DevEx ownership:
- Cross-service changes become slow and error-prone
- Integration issues surface late (or in production)
- Local development diverges from production reality
- Each team reinvents workflows instead of building on shared foundations
This role exists to:
- Create paved roads for development and testing
- Ensure engineers can make changes confidently across services and environments
- Turn platform complexity into repeatable, reliable developer workflows
You will work on:
- A shared platform powering all Trase deployments
- Multi-service systems with complex integration points
- Development and testing workflows that must reflect real production behavior
- Tooling that enables safe iteration in security- and compliance-sensitive environments
You will:
- Design and maintain local development environments that mirror production behavior as closely as possible
- Build and operate build systems, CI pipelines, and test orchestration for multi-service systems
- Own integration and end-to-end testing infrastructure, including:
- Test environments and fixtures
- Cross-service test coordination
- Flake detection and reduction
- Develop internal tooling (CLI, SDKs, scaffolding) that standardizes how engineers interact with the platform
- Create repeatable workflows for building, testing, and deploying changes across services
- Improve developer feedback loops (build times, test reliability, debugging workflows)
- Partner with DevOps/SRE to ensure development workflows align with production reliability and deployment systems
- Establish and maintain runbooks, templates, and onboarding systems that reduce ramp time and inconsistency
Staff-level technical leadership
- Define and drive the developer experience strategy across Trase OS
- Establish standards for:
- Build and test systems
- Local development environments
- Cross-service integration workflows
- Identify and eliminate systemic sources of developer friction
- Partner with platform and product engineers to ensure new systems are designed with operability and testability in mind
- Mentor engineers and raise the bar for engineering productivity and development ergonomics
Qualifications
Required
- 8+ years of experience in software engineering, with significant focus on developer tooling, build systems, or platform engineering
- Experience working in multi-service or distributed systems environments
- Strong experience with:
- CI/CD systems and build tooling
- Test infrastructure (integration / E2E)
- Developer tooling (CLIs, SDKs, scaffolding)
- Strong software engineering fundamentals (ability to build and maintain internal platforms/tools)
- Proven ability to improve developer velocity and system reliability simultaneously
- Experience driving cross-team technical initiatives
- Experience integrating LLMs into developer tooling, build systems, or internal platforms to improve engineering productivity
Nice to have
- Experience designing local-first or production-like dev environments (e.g., containerized or ephemeral environments)
- Experience reducing test flakiness at scale
- Familiarity with observability tooling for debugging developer workflows
- Experience working in regulated or security-sensitive environments
Benefits
- 100% employer-paid, comprehensive health care including medical, dental, and vision for you and your family.
- Paid maternity and paternity for 14 weeks at employees' normal pay.
- Unlimited PTO, with management approval.
- Opportunities for professional development and continued learning with educational reimbursements.
- Optional 401K, FSA, and equity incentives available.
- Mental health benefits through TARA Mind.
Some travel is required. If you want to be on the cutting edge of technology, building AI solutions for the future, and are up for a challenge, let’s talk!
Salary Range: $170,000-230,000. This represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience, skills, and other factors.
We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer: You’ll receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or on the basis of disability.
Our Red Cell Partners Benefits:
For full-time roles
- Career track opportunity with potential for rapid advancement with strong performance as the firm grows
- 100% employer paid, comprehensive health care including medical, dental, and vision for you and your family.
- Paid maternity and paternity for 14 weeks at employees' normal pay.
- Unlimited PTO, with management approval.
- Opportunities for professional development and continued learning.
- Optional 401K, FSA, and equity incentives available.
- Mental health benefits are available through Tara Mind.
- Cost effective GLP-1 solutions available through Crux.
We’re an Equal Opportunity Employer: You’ll receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, color, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or on the basis of disability.
Applicant Data Disclosure
By submitting an application, you acknowledge that Red Cell Partners, LLC ("Red Cell") uses third-party service providers to facilitate its recruitment and hiring processes. These providers include applicant tracking systems, candidate verification platforms, and fraud detection tools (collectively, "Hiring Platforms"). Your application materials, including your résumé, cover letter, work samples, responses to application questions, and any other information you submit, may be transmitted to and processed by these Hiring Platforms for the following purposes:
- Managing and administering your application throughout the hiring process;
- Verifying the accuracy and authenticity of application materials, including by cross-referencing information you provide against publicly available sources and proprietary databases;
- Identifying indicators of potentially fraudulent, fabricated, or materially misleading application content, including but not limited to discrepancies between submitted materials and publicly available professional profiles, geographic anomalies, and fabricated work histories.
Applications that are flagged through this process as containing indicators of fraud or material misrepresentation may be declined from further consideration. If you have questions about the status of your application or the evaluation process, please contact talent@redcellpartners.com.
Red Cell requires its Hiring Platform providers to process your information solely for the purposes described above and in accordance with applicable law. Your information will be retained only for as long as necessary to fulfill these purposes and any applicable legal obligations, after which it will be deleted in accordance with Red Cell's data retention policies.
For more information about how your data is used, please refer to our Privacy Policy and Applicant Privacy Notice.
How to Get Visa Sponsorship in Developer Experience
Confirm your degree qualifies for STEM OPT
Developer Experience roles almost always require a computer science, software engineering, or related STEM degree. Confirm your CIP code qualifies before applying, since STEM OPT gives you 36 months total, making you a far more attractive hire.
Highlight both engineering and communication skills
DevEx hiring managers look for candidates who can build tools and explain them clearly. Showcase open-source contributions, technical blog posts, or documentation projects alongside your coding work to stand out from pure engineering applicants.
Target companies with existing developer platforms
Companies that maintain a public API, SDK, or developer portal are actively investing in DevEx and more likely to sponsor. Search for roles at companies whose core product serves other developers, since those teams are typically well-funded and growing.
Understand your OPT employment requirements
Your OPT work must be directly related to your degree field. A Developer Experience role at a software company will satisfy this for most STEM graduates, but document the connection clearly in case your DSO or SEVP ever requests an explanation.
Apply before your EAD card arrives if timing is tight
Start applications at least 90 days before your program end date. Some DevEx roles have longer hiring cycles involving technical interviews and portfolio reviews, so you need enough runway to receive your EAD before a start date is set.
Use your portfolio as proof of concept
Developer Experience is a niche role and portfolios carry more weight than a resume alone. Build and share sample SDKs, developer onboarding guides, or API tutorials that demonstrate you understand what a great developer experience actually feels like.
Developer Experience jobs are hiring across the US. Find yours.
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Get Access To All JobsFrequently Asked Questions
Do Developer Experience jobs qualify for the STEM OPT extension?
Most Developer Experience roles qualify for the 24-month STEM OPT extension, giving you 36 months of work authorization total. The key requirement is that your degree falls under an approved STEM CIP code, typically computer science, software engineering, or a related field. You also need a qualifying employer who will sign your Form I-983 training plan and meet E-Verify enrollment requirements.
How do I find Developer Experience employers willing to work with OPT students?
Browse Migrate Mate to find Developer Experience roles at companies that have a clear history of sponsoring international candidates. Look specifically for companies building developer-facing products, since their DevEx teams tend to have structured hiring processes and legal resources familiar with OPT and H-1B sponsorship for engineering-adjacent roles.
Is a Developer Experience role considered a specialty occupation for future H-1B sponsorship?
Developer Experience roles generally qualify as specialty occupations for H-1B purposes because they require at least a bachelor's degree in a specialized field like computer science or software engineering. The role's technical complexity matters, so make sure your job description emphasizes engineering responsibilities alongside advocacy or documentation work when your employer files the petition.
Can I work as a contractor or freelancer in a Developer Experience role on OPT?
OPT allows self-employment and contract work as long as the work is directly related to your degree and you work at least 20 hours per week. For Developer Experience specifically, contract work through developer relations agencies or open-source foundations can count, but you must be able to document the connection to your field of study for your DSO.
What should I look for in an employer's H-1B sponsorship policy for DevEx roles?
Look for employers that have filed H-1B petitions for software engineers or developer advocates in the past, since Developer Experience sits in that same hiring pipeline. Check whether the company has an immigration support policy in writing before accepting an offer. Avoid assuming sponsorship is automatic, as many companies decide on a case-by-case basis even for technical roles.
See which Developer Experience employers are hiring and sponsoring visas right now.
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