Staff Software Engineer, Backend
Staff backend engineer on Hex's Compute team, owning high-performance execution architecture for notebooks and large-scale data warehouse queries. Requires 10+ years experience in systems design, parallel execution, caching, performance optimization, and data systems.
About the job
What you will do
- Evolve Hex's execution architecture — the graph-based system that compiles, plans, and runs user notebooks — including proposing and building entirely new compute components that support faster, smarter execution
- Drive parallel execution strategies and caching approaches that reduce latency and minimize unnecessary round trips to external data warehouses
- Instrument complex systems to surface and diagnose performance problems to give the team and our customers a much clearer picture of where time is being spent
- Collaborate across engineering and product to support new platform capabilities, such as building an internal query language that compiles to the appropriate dialect for any connected warehouse
- Author and review technical proposals, and mentor engineers to implement ambitious designs effectively
- Propose and roadmap long-term designs with clear milestones across quarters
About You
- 10+ years of backend engineering experience, with a strong focus on computation, performance, database/storage optimization, and systems architecture
- Experience with parallel execution strategies, caching strategies, and the trade-offs involved in remote data warehouse computation. Strong systems thinker with solid intuitions around storage, database performance, algorithms, and data structures
- A track record of solving difficult, large-scale systems design problems involving significant data and operational complexity — writing code and reviewing code of your teammates
- The ability to move from abstract, vague problems to well-articulated, well-reasoned technical solutions — and to roadmap ambitious designs with clear milestones across quarters
- A strong communicator; comfortable leading technical work and collaborating across a remote-first team
- Python and/or TypeScript required; experience with both is a plus
Nice to have
- Working knowledge of Kubernetes, Docker and cloud infrastructure
- Some frontend experience — this is a backend-focused role, but a willingness to occasionally wire a feature all the way through is a plus
Our stack
Our product is a web-based notebook and app authoring platform. Our frontend is built with Typescript and React, using a combination of Apollo GraphQL and Redux for managing application state and data. On the backend, we also use Typescript to power an Express/Apollo GraphQL server that interacts with Postgres, Redis, and Kubernetes to manage our database and Python kernels. Our backend is tightly integrated with our infrastructure and CI/CD, where we use a combination of Terraform, Helm, and AWS to deploy and maintain our stack.
Compensation
The salary range for this role is: $221,250 - $348,500
Skills
Python, TypeScript, Kubernetes, Docker, AWS, Terraform, Postgres, Redis, GraphQL, Express
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