At Mechanical Orchard, we specialize in safely rewriting the most critical and complex business applications—the software that runs the world as we know it today—so they’re ready to adapt quickly and easily to market challenges and opportunities. Our approach emerged from observing the decades-long failure patterns in modernization efforts and is designed to eliminate the risks and disruptions that characterize most projects.
Our background in software development and the impact on the industry is well known: we've literally helped write the book on XP and other impactful Agile practices. We’re applying the same thoughtfulness and rigor in applying AI pragmatically where it helps. We believe in the durable principles behind Agile, and embrace the power of cross-functional teams, collective ownership, test driven development, short feedback loops, and continuous improvement.
We’re bringing joy to beleaguered IT teams everywhere. Together, we’re seeing how applying craft, expertise, and technologies we’re building can fundamentally transform the way companies operate, innovate, and win. Our values are: Do the right thing. Do what works. Be kind.
As a Software Engineer at Mechanical Orchard, you will be expected to:
- Work as part of small, cross functional XP teams building production applications for customers or for Mechanical Orchard using a variety of modern programming languages
- Pair program with other engineers and collaborate closely with other roles such as product managers and designers
- Apply and evolve XP engineering practices such pair programming, test-driven development, refactoring, continuous integration and continuous delivery
- Operate and support production applications as a team in the context of the agile DevSecOps model
- Help onboard developers (internal and external) to practices and techniques
- Lead and collaborate on technical discovery efforts for existing systems, particularly legacy mainframes
- Continuously learn about relevant emerging AI or traditional technologies and agile practices
- Foster the growth of the organization through mentorship, tech talks, and other means
- Support and improve our system stability including through on-call rotations
Things to consider before applying
- Our technology org has an on-call rotation which is essential to the maintenance of the modern systems we build. If that’s not something you want to commit to, you might be frustrated here.
- If you dislike or have never tried pair programming, expect a steep learning curve.
- If you need an in-office experience (and don’t live near our headquarters in San Francisco), MO might not be the best fit.
- We offer opportunities for team and organization offsites. If you want zero travel for work, you may feel left out.
- A lot of our teams have a customer-facing services component. It may be difficult to fully avoid that kind of work over time.
- Most of the mainframe systems we work with have COBOL, which has a steep learning curve and many foreign concepts.
The ideal candidate has worked as a software engineer in a professional, team based environment, with some exposure or demonstrated passion for XP practices such as pair programming and test driven development.
They are comfortable as a full stack developer, and have expertise in at least one modern programming language and application framework. Our tech stack includes Java, Python, Elixir, Rust, Go, and Nix. If you don’t know any of these, that's fine.
Strong communication and collaboration skills as well as empathy are essential for working closely with the development team, customers, and others at Mechanical Orchard.
