Job Specifications
Environmental Science Associates (ESA) is a 100% employee-owned environmental consulting firm. We plan, design, permit, mitigate, and restore for projects across our communities, infrastructure systems, open spaces, and wildlands. We are 50 years strong in 21 offices across California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southeastern United States.
Environmental Science Associates (ESA) is looking for a skilled Mid-Level Software Engineer with a minimum of 5-10 years of experience to join our Corporate Technology Services AI Development Team, based in Portland, Oregon. This is a hybrid position that supports conducting most work from home or office locations. ESA’s agile teams have the option to meet in person a few times a month for sprint planning and retrospectives, and may choose to work together in ESA’s office a few days a week. We are therefore seeking candidates ideally located in the vicinity of Portland who will be available to occasionally travel to our Portland office. In this role, you will bring your critical thinking and problem-solving skills to back-end and front-end development, contributing to a range of innovative projects as part of an Agile software development team.
This mid-level position is part of our Corporate Technology team, where you will work closely with Product Owners, UX designers, data specialists, and fellow engineers to design, build, and evolve modern, AI-enabled applications that support both client-facing environmental solutions and internal operational excellence. Your day-to-day work will involve developing scalable web applications and services using modern SPA frameworks and cloud-native architectures, integrating APIs and data pipelines, and applying best practices for testing, security, and deployment. You will contribute directly to applications that leverage large language models, natural language interfaces, analytics, and automation to make complex environmental data more accessible, actionable, and impactful for users across the firm and for external clients.
This role is well suited to a progressive, mid-level engineer who is comfortable working across the full application stack and is eager to apply emerging technologies in real-world settings. You will help prototype and productionize AI-driven features using contemporary AI development tools and techniques, collaborate on data-intensive solutions built on platforms such as Databricks, and participate in iterative delivery informed by real user feedback. Beyond writing code, you will be expected to think systemically about performance, reliability, and maintainability, and to partner closely with the Product Owner to translate product intent into robust technical solutions that advance ESA’s technology strategy—accelerating environmental outcomes while supporting sustainable economic and community growth
Who You Are
You are a growth-oriented, early- to mid-career software engineer who is motivated by building modern, production-grade applications and is actively expanding your skills in AI-enabled and data-driven development.
You bring several years (a minimum of 5) of professional experience contributing to medium- to large-scale software systems, including designing, developing, testing, deploying, and supporting APIs, user interfaces, and data-backed application features in collaborative team environments.
You hold a bachelor’s degree in computer science or a related technical field or possess equivalent practical experience delivering contemporary software solutions.
You are comfortable working across the full application stack and understand how front-end, back-end, and data components come together to support scalable, user-facing applications.
You have experience collaborating with UX designers and Product Owners, translating design concepts and user flows into intuitive, high-quality user interfaces, and applying core design principles to ensure clarity, usability, and trust—particularly in data- and AI-informed interfaces.
You are proficient in modern web application development, including HTML, CSS, and JavaScript/TypeScript, with experience building single-page applications using contemporary frameworks such as Angular or similar SPA technologies.
You bring solid back-end development experience with familiarity in technologies such as C#, .NET Core, SQL, Docker, and API-driven architectures, and an interest in applying these skills to create innovative products and services.
You have some exposure to AI-enabled application development—such as integrating large language model APIs, Python, pyspark, RAG, LangChain/LangGraph, MCP, and working with embeddings and search, or collaborating with data or ML specialists on projects.
You are experienced in collaborative software development practices, including version control with Git/GitHub, participating in code reviews, and contributing to shared coding standards and engineering best practices.
You communicate clearly, thoughtfully, and respectfully
About the Company
ESA is a 100% employee-owned environmental consulting firm. We plan, design, permit, mitigate, and restore--for projects across our communities, infrastructure systems, open spaces, and wildlands. We are 50 years strong in 21 offices across California, the Pacific Northwest, and the Southeastern United States. Specializing in community and airport planning, environmental planning, analysis and assessment, natural and cultural resources management, environmental restoration and design, and regulatory compliance--ESA scientist...
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