Software Engineer - Cloud Platform
Zero Motorcycles Inc. · Scotts Valley, CA
$120,000–$170,000
Jul 3, 2026
Scotts Valley, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior individual-contributor role focused on the cloud platform that connects electric motorcycles to a mobile app and field diagnostic tools. Day-to-day work spans AWS infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, data layers (RDS, DynamoDB, S3), observability, and a FastAPI/Next.js stack, with ownership extending from architecture decisions to production reliability. The role also involves mentoring junior engineers and collaborating across hardware, firmware, and support teams.
Senior level · 4+ years · Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA · Full-time
Pay in the description: $120,000–$170,000
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 10 people in the Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 4–15
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $160,361 (middle half $126,941–$179,584). 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 (7)
The role title is not given in the posting; 'Unspecified' is used for advertised seniority. The scope and mentorship responsibilities (mentoring junior and mid-level engineers, owning architecture decisions, presenting to leadership) clearly support a Senior band, despite the wide 4–9 year experience range.
The alt SOC (15-1244 Network and Computer Systems Administrators) is noted because a meaningful portion of the role involves infrastructure ownership and operations; however, the primary emphasis on writing and shipping code (FastAPI backend, AWS CDK in TypeScript, CI/CD pipelines, test suites) makes 15-1252 Software Developers the stronger fit.
AWS CDK is listed under 'Domain Expertise' (a required section) and is explicitly called out with TypeScript as the implementation language; both are treated as hard gates.
Next.js and React are listed under 'Domain Expertise' as 'Proficiency with Next.js and modern React-based frontend development' — placed in the required qualifications block, so treated as hard gates despite being secondary to the backend/infrastructure focus.
AI-assisted development tools appear in the 'AI and Hands-on Capability' subsection framed as fluency expected of the candidate, but the language ('fluent with') is softer and the emphasis is on not substituting them for engineering judgment; listed as preferred to reflect that nuance.
Scotts Valley, CA falls within the Santa Cruz-Watsonville, CA CBSA (42100). The posting specifies an on-site location with no remote option mentioned.
Ignored 1 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): AI-assisted development tools.
Read the full posting
The employer publishes the full description on their own site — read it there ↗. Or sign in to read it here — it's free, and it also lets you track this application.