Staff Backend Engineer

Responsibilities

• Architect and build high-throughput backend services that process real-time operational data
• Lead technical design reviews and choose pragmatic approaches for new features and system improvements
• Design event-driven and distributed systems that are resilient, observable, and performance-tuned
• Define stable APIs for internal and external consumers, partnering with frontend for seamless integration
• Improve engineering excellence through code reviews, standards, testing strategy, and incident practices
• Build and maintain CI/CD workflows that enable rapid, secure delivery
• Troubleshoot complex production issues, lead incident response, and drive durable fixes
• Partner with product and operational stakeholders to translate needs into deliverable technical plans
• Contribute to technical strategy and roadmap planning across backend services
• Support hiring by participating in interviews and helping define what “great” looks like

Requirements

• 10+ years building scalable backend systems in production environments
• 4+ years of experience in Golang, or 4+ years writing server-side business logic in an object-oriented language (Java, Kotlin, C#, Python) or systems language (C, C++, Rust) with strong system design aptitude
• Experience leading technical initiatives end-to-end, including architecture, execution, and delivery
• Experience designing distributed systems (e.g., event-driven architectures, messaging, consistency tradeoffs)
• Experience building cloud-native services and operating them in production (AWS preferred)
• Strong security fundamentals: secure coding, threat modeling, and defensible design choices
• Track record mentoring engineers through code reviews, technical guidance, and feedback
• Strong communication skills and ability to align teams around clear technical decisions

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience designing data models and queries in graph databases (e.g., Neo4j, AWS Neptune)
• Experience using relational databases (e.g., Postgres, MySQL, or MariaDB) to solve business problems and reasoning about query performance
• Experience on defense, intelligence, or security-focused products with real operational users
• Experience shipping large-scale data processing systems (streaming, near-real-time analytics, or similar)
• Experience integrating ML/AI capabilities into production systems in a practical, measurable way
• Open-source contributions or personal projects that demonstrate strong engineering craft

Tech Environment

• Go (Golang) business logic
• AWS and hybrid cloud/on-prem deployments
• Event-driven messaging (e.g., NATS)
• Containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
• GraphQL and service-to-service APIs
• Graph databases (Neo4j, AWS Neptune) and complex relationship data

Benefits

• Health: Medical, dental, and vision plan options. Life/AD&D, disability coverage options
• Family: Paid parental leave (12 weeks for birthing parents, 4 for non-birthing parents, 6 weeks for adoptive/foster/intended parents)
• Vacation: Paid holidays and flexible PTO
• Retirement: 401(k) with pre-tax and Roth options, HSA/FSA options, dependent care FSA
• At the office: Commuter benefits, on-site garage parking, bike storage, building fitness center, desk setup stipend