Porter is building the operating system for intra-city logistics in India. With ~20 million orders per month , 500K+ daily-active drivers , and rapid scale ahead ( 1.5x growth expected next year ), we solve complex real-world problems at massive scale, balancing speed, reliability, and cost efficiency in a highly operational environment.

Role Overview

As an SDE 3 at Porter , you will own and build large, business-critical systems operating at scale. This role goes beyond codingyou'll design scalable architectures, make thoughtful trade-offs, influence engineering standards, and mentor other engineers while working closely with product and business stakeholders.

You are expected to think from first principles , leverage AI responsibly , and build systems that are reliable, observable, and cost-aware.

Key Responsibilities

Technical & System Design

- Design, build, and own scalable, high-availability distributed systems handling millions of transactions.
- Drive Low-Level and High-Level Design , including APIs, data models, and service architectures.
- Perform capacity planning, back-of-the-envelope calculations, and identify system bottlenecks early.
- Ensure engineering excellence across reliability, observability, security, and cost optimization .

Coding & Execution
- Write clean, maintainable, and testable production-grade code.
- Apply SOLID principles, design patterns, and sound engineering practices.
- Use AI tools to accelerate development while critically evaluating outputs knowing when to use AI and when not to.

Ownership & Delivery
- Own end-to-end delivery of systemsfrom design to production and long-term maintenance.
- Drive projects with high autonomy, handle ambiguity, and deliver under tight timelines.
- Participate actively in operational reviews, incident management, and system improvements.





Collaboration & Leadership
- Collaborate closely with Product, Data, and Business teams to balance tech decisions with real-world logistics constraints.
- Mentor junior engineers, influence code quality, and help raise the engineering bar.
- Contribute to hiring, technical interviews, and culture-building initiatives.

What We're Looking For

Experience

- 4+ years of software development experience (SDE 3 or equivalent role).
- Proven experience owning and scaling production systems.
- Experience working in rapid-paced, high-ownership environments (startups or scale-ups preferred).

Technical Skills
- Strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, and object-oriented design .
- Hands-on experience with system design at scale.
- Familiarity with modern backend stacks, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure.
- Strong understanding of engineering operations: monitoring, alerting, reliability, and performance tuning.

AI & First-Principles Thinking
- Ability to use AI as a productivity tool, not a crutch.
- Strong judgment to validate AI-generated outputs and reason independently.
- Comfortable breaking down complex problems to fundamentals rather than pattern-matching solutions.

Leadership & Mindset
- Strong sense of ownership and accountability (Own It).
- User-first thinking with an understanding of business impact (User Obsession).
- Bias for action and execution in ambiguous situations (Keep Moving).
- Collaborative, empathetic, and resilient under pressure.
- Desire to raise the bar for talent, quality, and execution.

Why Join Porter?
- Build systems that operate at massive real-world scale .
- Solve unique logistics and operational challenges.
- Work in a culture that values ownership, frugality, speed, and impact .
- Significant scope to grow beyond SDE 3 into technical or leadership paths.

📌 Software Engineer (Bengaluru)
🏢 Porter
📍 Bengaluru