Software development engineer Jobs in Oakland, CA

Software Engineer

About the Company

At Flow, were reimagining what it means to live, work, and connect. More than just a real estate company, Flow is a brand, a technology platform, and an operations ecosystem spanning condominiums, hotels, multifamily residences, and office spaces. Were building a new kind of living experience: one thats flexible, connected, and designed to create genuine community and real value for the people who call Flow home.

Our mission is oneness: prioritizing our residents and their experiences, and fostering connection with ourselves, their neighbors, and the natural world. By putting people at the center of everything we do, were creating vibrant, human-centered communities where life, work, creativity, and play all come together in one place.

About the Role

As a member of Flow’s Engineering team, you’ll build practical, high-impact software and work directly with the people who use them every day — operators, neighbors, business leaders, and cross-functional teams trying to move faster and work smarter.

This is not a role where you build in isolation and toss work over the wall. You’ll be embedded with teams across the business, translating real operational friction into elegant software, intelligent workflows, and AI-powered products that meaningfully improve how work gets done and how our neighbors live.

We’re hiring a software engineer, but the role is really that of a builder. Our title says “software engineer,” but the mindset we’re looking for is closer to a product engineer: someone who wants to deeply understand what our end users — neighbors and operators — actually need, and who treats technology as a tool in service of that outcome rather than an end in itself. You’ll move across the stack as the problem demands it: backend, frontend, data, infrastructure, automation, AI. Strong backend fundamentals are a great foundation, but this role is not a fit for someone who only wants to live in the backend. If touching a frontend, wiring up a workflow, or picking up a new part of the stack makes you uneasy rather than curious, this isn’t the right seat.

We care much more about slope than about y-intercept. In other words, we’re less interested in exactly how much you already know on day one, and far more interested in how fast you learn, how willingly you expand into unfamiliar territory, and how you respond when the job asks you to pick up something new. We’re looking for people who treat their own skill set as something to keep building, not something to protect.

You should be genuinely AI-native — not someone who has used an AI coding assistant a few times, but someone who has internalized what it means to build with AI as a core part of the craft. You use tools like Claude Code and Cursor as force multipliers, which means strong written communication is part of the job: clear prompts, clear documentation, clear stakeholder updates. You know how to move fast with AI without sacrificing quality — when to trust generated output, when to slow down and apply deeper engineering judgment, and how to hold your own work to a high bar even as the pace increases.

We build and iterate quickly, using modern engineering practices and AI-assisted development to move from idea to working solution with speed and rigor. We value engineers who think critically, work independently, and own problems end-to-end. We also value people who are deeply curious, move quickly, and care about shipping tools that are actually used in the real world — not just in demos, but in physical environments like buildings, where software has to support real teams, real operations, real neighbors and real outcomes. You’ll have significant autonomy to scope opportunities, make architectural decisions, run experiments, and challenge assumptions about how work should be done. You should be excited not only by building software, but by shaping how AI and engineering practices can transform day-to-day execution across the business.

Finally, we believe our team is better together. Every position at Flow has an onsite or in-office requirement.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain software, workflow automations, and AI-enabled products that improve the work of our operators and the lives of our neighbors

• Partner directly with teams across operations, marketing, leasing, and other business functions to understand day-to-day pain points and turn them into scalable product and engineering solutions

• Move fluidly across the stack — backend, frontend, data, and infrastructure — picking up whatever is needed to ship a complete solution, rather than staying confined to a single layer

• Lead experimentation efforts to validate new ideas quickly, measure impact, and iterate toward tools that create real business value

• Embed with various business functions to understand their goals, create a plan, and implement solutions that move the company forward

• Own problems end-to-end — from stakeholder discovery and workflow mapping through implementation, rollout, and adoption

• Document system design decisions and explain technical tradeoffs clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders

• Use AI coding assistants to accelerate development while maintaining high standards for quality, maintainability, and reliability

Qualifications

• A minimum of three years of software engineering experience building products, platforms, or internal tools that improve business operations or team productivity

• Solid backend fundamentals, paired with a genuine desire to be a generalist — comfortable moving into frontend, data, or infrastructure work whenever the problem calls for it

• A track record of learning quickly and expanding into unfamiliar areas; we’re hiring for trajectory and adaptability at least as much as for what you already know

• A builder’s mindset and strong product instincts — someone who sees themselves as a product engineer, wants to understand what neighbors and operators actually need, and treats technology as a means to that end

• Genuine, hands-on AI-nativeness: fluency with tools like Claude Code and Cursor, a clear point of view on when AI speeds you up and when it doesn’t, and the judgment to keep quality high while moving fast

• Experience working closely with business and product stakeholders to solve real workflow problems through software

• Strong hands-on skills (or a desire to learn) shell scripting, Python, Go, TypeScript, and more

• Experience working with a range of data and retrieval patterns, including relational systems, vector databases, and graph databases

• Strong written and verbal communication skills — comfortable writing clear documentation, effective AI prompts, and explaining technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders

• A solid understanding of the principles and challenges of building reliable, scalable, and maintainable software systems

• The ability to balance elegant design with practical tradeoffs while prioritizing continuous delivery of value to the business

• Experience building in fast-moving startup environments

• Strong analytical skills, curiosity, and a bias toward action

• A deep interest in how AI can reshape products, workflows, and the way teams operate, along with a desire to ship tools that create measurable impact in real physical environments

Benefits

Comprehensive Benefits Package (Medical / Dental / Vision / Disability / Life)

Paid time off and 13 paid holidays

401(k) retirement plan

Healthcare and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs)

Access to HSA-compatible plans

Pre-tax commuter benefits

Employee Assistance Program (EAP), free therapy through SpringHealth, acupuncture, and other wellness offerings

Flow is proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and hires regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity and/or expression, pregnancy, Veteran status any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local law. In addition, we provide reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities.

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