Software Engineer
Align Technology · San Jose, CA
$141,300–$194,400
Jul 7, 2026
San Jose, CA
Jul 20, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A full-stack web application engineering role within a Research & Development team, focused on building and maintaining Java/Kotlin and Spring-based microservices and REST APIs. The work involves collaborating with architecture, security, and QA teams to ensure scalable, standards-compliant delivery. Best suited to an experienced backend-leaning engineer with a solid grasp of event-driven patterns, cloud infrastructure, and test-driven development practices.
Senior level · 5+ years · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
Pay in the description: $141,300–$194,400
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 440 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 330–570
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $213,110 (middle half $173,650–$226,080). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (8)
The JD accepts 'BS/MS degree or equivalent years of experience', so no hard degree gate — the degree requirement is set to None.
PostgreSQL is listed as 'preferred' within the RDBMS requirement ('Experience in one or more RDBMS such as Postgres (preferred)'); however, the RDBMS requirement itself is a hard gate in the qualifications block, so it is marked required with PostgreSQL as the primary named option and common alternatives populated.
Kafka and RabbitMQ are listed together as examples of messaging systems under a 'Knowledge of' framing — treated as preferred, with RabbitMQ as an alternative to Kafka.
Cloud platforms (Heroku, AWS) are introduced with 'Knowledge of any cloud platforms such as…' — a soft framing; marked preferred.
Docker and Kubernetes appear under 'industry standard cloud technologies' at the end of the qualifications block but with no firm gating language; marked preferred.
JIRA, Git, and BitBucket appear under 'Familiarity in using tools such as…' — explicitly soft framing; marked preferred.
Event-driven architecture and CQRS are mentioned as architectural patterns but name no specific technology tool, so they are omitted per the no-generic-concepts rule.
TDD/BDD is called out as 'Extensive knowledge and experience' in the qualifications block but names no specific framework or tool, so it is omitted.
Read the full posting
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