Software Engineer II

About Vibes 

Vibes’ mobile-first platform creates personal, revenue-driving and long-term mobile engagement between consumers and the world-class brands they love. Industry leaders like Chipotle, Kohl’s and Polo Ralph Lauren use Vibes to grow customer relationships with relevant, high-volume mobile messaging and mobile wallet marketing on a global scale. Vibes enables marketers to seamlessly connect with their customers using a data-rich and API-packed solution that beautifully optimizes and unifies their SMS, MMS, RCS and Mobile Wallet campaigns. To learn more about Vibes, visit www.vibes.com. 
Position Overview:

We are seeking a collaborative, proactive, and results-driven full stack Software Engineer with a strong backend emphasis to join our dynamic team. In this role, you will play a crucial part in developing and maintaining custom cloud-based applications for Vibes customers, with a focus on backend development and lightweight server-rendered frontend work delivered through discrete, project-based engagements. The primary stack is Ruby on Rails; engineers with solid backend fundamentals in comparable languages such as Python or JavaScript/TypeScript are encouraged to apply. Additionally, you will contribute to AWS infrastructure managed through Terraform, ensuring optimal performance and scalability across our cloud services.

An ideal candidate possesses a growth mindset, strategic thinking capacity, and strong communication skills. This role holds significant impact at Vibes during a period of exciting growth. In a world marked by constant change and uncertainty, one area that’s growing rapidly is the digital consumer engagement space — specifically, how brands establish personalized, 1-on-1 interactions with consumers at scale. This role places you at the heart of this exciting evolution in consumer engagement. The position reports to the Senior Director of Professional Services and offers hybrid work in the Chicago metro area. If you’re eager to build systems that offer large enterprises the latest innovations in mobile marketing technology and spread positive vibes, then you have an opportunity to thrive here.

This is a full-time, hybrid position based in the greater Chicago metro area, reporting to the Senior Director of Professional Services. Vibes has been recognized in 2026 as a Built In Best Places to Work.

Primary Responsibilities:

Feature development with guidance:

• Build and extend features across backend services and admin applications, working from well-defined tickets with senior engineer support
• Implement data models, API endpoints, and lightweight frontend components in a server-rendered context
• Write clean, tested code and participate in MR-based code review as both author and reviewer

Infrastructure and deployment:

• Make targeted infrastructure changes within established Terraform module patterns like adjusting variables, modifying resource configurations, and promoting changes across environments
• Participate in CI/CD pipeline workflows and understand how infrastructure and application releases interact across dependent services

Operational work:

• Write scripts to initialize, migrate, and transform data across relational and NoSQL data stores
• Investigate production issues using cloud-native observability tools (logs, metrics, and distributed tracing) escalating when appropriate and building diagnostic skills over time

Team practices:

• Integrate with third-party APIs and internal platform services, building familiarity with the mobile marketing domain
• Read and contribute to architectural documentation as you build context on the system

Required Qualifications:

• 1–3 years of professional software engineering experience
• Proficiency in at least one backend language with object-oriented or functional foundations. Ruby is ideal but Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Kotlin, Elixir, or similar transfer well
• Comfort with relational databases: writing queries, understanding joins, and working with migrations (PostgreSQL preferred)
• Familiarity with REST APIs: consuming them, understanding request/response patterns, and debugging integration issues
• Hands-on AWS experience with core services: Lambda, SQS, S3, RDS, and CloudWatch. You should be comfortable navigating the console, reading logs, and reasoning about how these services interact
• Exposure to infrastructure-as-code concepts, ideally Terraform, like reading existing configurations, understanding what a terraform plan is telling you, and making changes within established patterns
• Git-based workflow: branching, pull/merge requests, resolving conflicts
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to troubleshoot complex issues across the full stack
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment
• Passion for learning and staying updated on emerging technologies, best practices, and industry trends
• Dedication to delivering high-quality solutions that meet the needs of our clients and stakeholders, with a focus on usability, reliability, and scalability
• Ability and willingness to travel to Vibes’ downtown Chicago, IL office several times a month
• Authorized to work in the United States without the need for current or future employer sponsorship

Nice to have (not required):

• Any Rails or Sinatra experience
• Terraform module authoring or multi-environment workspace experience
• DynamoDB or other NoSQL data modeling
• Any server-rendered frontend framework
• GitLab CI experience

Our Core Values:

• Respect, Honesty, and Integrity for All Stakeholders
• Always be Learning
• Relentless Focus on the Customer
• Never be Satisfied
• Create Value
• Seek Accountability and Ownership

Compensation and Benefits
The compensation range for this role is $100,000 to $125,000. Final compensation will be determined by factors such as relevant work experience, skills, and certifications. Vibes offers a full slate of benefits from competitive salaries, options, medical, dental and vision coverage, short- and long-term disability, life insurance, 11 paid holidays, flexible vacation, summer Fridays, Winter Holiday break, commuter benefits, a 401(k) plan and match, and a paid parental leave program.

Equal Opportunity
Vibes is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants regardless of race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, parental or pregnancy status, marriage and civil partnership, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. Reasonable accommodations will be made to meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and will be provided as requested by candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.