Staff Software Engineer

There are over 7 billion people on this planet. And by 2050, there will be 2 billion more... many moving into urban centers at an unprecedented rate. Making sure there is enough food, fiber and infrastructure for our rapidly growing world is what we're all about at John Deere. And it's why we're investing in our people and our technology like never before! Here the world's brightest minds are tackling the world's biggest challenges. If you believe one person can make the world a better place, we'll put you to work. RIGHT NOW.

John Deere is an equal opportunity employer, including disabled & veterans.

Primary Location: United States (US) - Illinois - Chicago

Function: Technology (CA)

Title: Staff Software Engineer - 123173

Onsite/Remote: Onsite Position

Your Responsibilities

As a Staff Software Engineer for John Deere World Headquarters located in Chicago, IL, you will:

Lead architecture, design, and implementation of complex, multisystem solutions across multiple digital products

Analyze business needs and define system specifications and architectural requirements

Lead design reviews that ensure high quality, maintainable, scalable, reliable, and secure software and data products

Develop coding standards, integration patterns, and data pipeline standards in partnership with architects and principal engineers

Provide expert full stack leadership, defining patterns and enabling delivery across React/Redux front ends, Java/Spring Boot and Python microservices, and secure REST APIs (Java, Spring, Node, serverless), while enforcing secure by design practices and mentoring engineers to apply them consistently

Lead the definition, implementation, and validation of non-functional requirements, including scalability, reliability, performance, availability, and security

Guide teams in designing for operational excellence, including resilience, fault tolerance, disaster recovery, and production readiness

Establish observability standards using platforms such as New Relic, Datadog, CloudWatch, or Grafana, ensuring services are instrumented with high quality logs, metrics, traces, dashboards, and alerts

Drive platform standardization efforts by shaping reusable architectural patterns, shared components, and common frameworks across Global IT

Your Responsibilities (Continued)

Mentor and coach junior and senior engineers to build deep technical capability across stacks

Promote best practices for engineering, design, documentation, code review, and operational readiness

Stay current with emerging technologies, engineering trends, and cloud native practices; continuously upskill and adapt to evolving business needs

Evaluate new tools, frameworks, and patterns to determine their strategic fit for long term architecture and platform evolution

Collaborate with Product Managers, UX, Architecture, and cross functional teams to shape product roadmaps

Represent engineering in strategic discussions and help define long term technology direction

Promote a culture of learning, continuous improvement, and knowledge sharing across Global IT

Lead AI assisted engineering practices by shaping agent oriented development patterns (prompt design, tool orchestration, guardrails) that accelerate delivery while preserving code quality, security, and traceability

Practice and scale Vibe Coding as a core discipline-use AI pair programming to draft code, tests, and documentation at speed, and validate outputs rigorously through reviews, static analysis, and automated testing before merge

VISA Sponsorship is NOT available for this position

What Skills You Need

8 or more years of experience designing and developing backend applications using Java frameworks, servlets, J2EE, and Spring or Spring Boot

6 or more years of experience developing front end applications using JavaScript, HTML, CSS, React, and Redux

4 or more years operating cloud native systems in AWS or Azure, including containers (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes or EKS)

4 or more years building serverless applications using AWS Lambda and API Gateway or equivalent

5 or more years designing and integrating databases with technologies such as MongoDB, DynamoDB, and relational databases

Proven ability to work with architects, product leaders, and principal engineers to align technology strategy

Experienced in designing secure systems, applying security by design principles, and implementing authentication and authorization frameworks such as OAuth, OIDC, and SAML

Demonstrated ability to lead design reviews, mentor engineers, and influence teams across organizational boundaries

Evaluate new tools, frameworks, and patterns to determine their strategic fit for long term architecture

Promote a culture of learning within the team and encourage knowledge sharing across Global IT

Hands on observability expertise instrumenting services and creating actionable dashboards/alerts with New Relic, Datadog, CloudWatch, or Grafana; strong grasp of metrics, logs, traces, SLOs/SLAs, and on call readiness

Non functional engineering leadership designing for scalability, reliability, performance, and availability, including load shedding, autoscaling, partitioning, caching, and high availability/failover pattern

What Makes You Standout

Demonstrated passion for continuous learning, upskilling, and staying current with cloud, AI, and engineering trends

AWS or Azure cloud certifications

Experience with event driven architectures and distributed messaging

Experience contributing to or defining cross team architectural patterns

Strong communication and stakeholder alignment skills

Experience applying AI assisted engineering (agentic workflows, prompt patterns, secure guardrails) to improve speed and quality

Proficiency with Vibe Coding practices and agentic development, including disciplined review and verification of AI generated code, tests, and documentation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or closely related field

What You'll Get

At John Deere, you are empowered to create a career that will take you to where you want to go while working in an inclusive team environment. Here, you'll enjoy the freedom to explore new projects, the support to think outside the box and the advanced tools and technology that foster innovation and achievement. Additionally, we offer a comprehensive reward package to help you get started on your new career path, including:

Flexible work arrangements

Highly competitive base pay

Savings & Retirement benefits (401K and Defined Contribution)

Healthcare benefits with a generous company contribution in the Health Savings Account

Adoption assistance

Employee Assistance Programs

Tuition assistance

Fitness subsidies and on-site gyms at specific Deere locations

Charitable contribution match

Employee Purchase Plan & numerous discount programs for personal use

Vacation and Holiday Pay

$141,132.00 - $211,692.00 + Benefits

Follow this link to learn more about our Total Rewards Package https://bit.ly/3XCd8fL

Must be 18 years of age or older to apply

The information contained herein is not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and qualifications required of individuals performing the job. The qualifications detailed in this job description are not considered the minimum requirements necessary to perform the job, but rather as guidelines.

The terms of the applicable benefit plans, and all company actions administering or interpreting these plans, continue to control. Deere & Company reserves the right to suspend, amend, modify, or terminate the Plan(s) in any manner at any time, including the right to modify or eliminate any cost-sharing between the company and participants. Changes, which can be made at any time, are made by action of the company's board of directors, or to the extent authorized by resolution of its board of directors, or by the Deere & Company Compensation Committee. In the event of a conflict between the language of the official Plan Documents and this document, the language of the official Plan Documents will control.

ACA Section 1557 Nondiscrimination Notice

The John Deere Health Benefit Plans for Salaried Employees and The John Deere Benefit Plan for Wage Employees comply with applicable Federal civil rights laws and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, status as a protected veteran, or status as a qualified individual with disability.