Staff Software Engineer, API Engineering

Company: Ridgeline
Location: San Ramon
Posted on: January 13, 2026

Job Description:

Are you an experienced engineer who thrives on building robust, scalable API platforms that empower developers across an ecosystem? Do you enjoy defining standards that make APIs intuitive, secure, and a delight to consume? Are you excited to leverage cutting-edge AI tools like ChatGPT and Cursor to elevate developer productivity and velocity? If so, we invite you to be a part of our innovative team. As a Staff Software Engineer in API Engineering, you will shape the future of Ridgeline’s API platform, driving strategy, architecture, and implementation for mission-critical services. You’ll design and evolve our gateway infrastructure, define and enforce API product standards, and ensure that reliability, security, and usability are at the core of every API. Your leadership will directly impact both internal teams and external customers, empowering them to build on Ridgeline’s cloud-native investment management platform. You’ll work with cutting-edge technologies and AI tools—including ChatGPT, Claude Code, and Cursor—to accelerate development and improve code quality. At Ridgeline, how we work matters as much as what we build. Ridgeliners act like owners, choose growth over comfort, and communicate with transparency. We assume positive intent, bias toward action, and bring solutions—not just problems. We celebrate wins, learn from setbacks, and thrive in a resilient, collaborative, high-performing culture. If Ridgeline Way excites you, we’d love to meet you. The impact you will have: • Lead the design and development of a Kong-based API Gateway hosting thousands of highly available, secure, and scalable APIs • Define and codify API design standards that elevate internal, external, and agentic developer usability • Identify and eliminate friction in API development through simplification, automation, and tooling that improve developer velocity and experience • Establish reliability and observability practices to monitor and ensure API performance, availability, and security • Develop and maintain API documentation using automated OpenAPI spec generation and validation tools • Participate in API design forums to ensure alignment with Ridgeline’s architecture and developer experience principles • Write high-quality, well-tested code and provide thoughtful peer reviews that foster growth across the team • Apply modern engineering practices including CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and test automation • Leverage AI tools like ChatGPT, Cursor, and Claude Code to accelerate development, improve code quality, and inspire innovative solutions • Collaborate across teams with transparency, ownership, and resilience, driving outcomes that reflect the Ridgeline Way What we look for: • 8 years of software engineering experience, including technical leadership of large-scale platform or product APIs • Deep expertise with cloud-native distributed systems (AWS preferred), secure RESTful API design, and API management/gateway solutions (Kong or equivalent) • Proven experience setting API design standards and delivering production-grade APIs documented with OpenAPI spec • Strong understanding of API reliability, monitoring, and operational best practices • Familiarity with event-driven architectures, WebSockets, and authentication/authorization models for APIs Excellent communication and mentoring skills with an inclusive approach to technical leadership • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field • Creative problem-solving mindset and passion for helping others succeed Bonus: • Experience contributing to or defining API product strategy • Hands-on experience with developer productivity tooling for APIs • Exposure to financial services or investment management domain • Practical experience with modern AI frameworks that support software development Ridgeline is the industry cloud platform for investment management. It was founded by visionary tech entrepreneur Dave Duffield (co-founder of both PeopleSoft and Workday) to apply his successful formula of solving operational business challenges with bold innovation and human connectivity to the unique needs of the investment management industry. Ridgeline started with a clean sheet of paper and a deep bench of experts bound by a set of core values and motivated to revolutionize an industry underserved by its current tech offerings. We are building a new, modern platform in the public cloud, purpose-built for the investment management industry and we are prioritizing security, agility, and usability to empower business like never before.

Keywords: Ridgeline, Sunnyvale , Staff Software Engineer, API Engineering, IT / Software / Systems , San Ramon, California