Staff / Principal Backend Engineer

Role overview

Lead backend architecture and implementation across multiple client engagements, taking systems from data model through deployment. This is a hands-on senior role: you will write critical production code, establish engineering standards, and make design decisions that shape reliability, performance, and long-term cost. You will also work alongside client teams so they can operate and maintain what you build.

Responsibilities

- Own the architecture of production backends across concurrent engagements, from schemas and APIs through deployment. - Write critical code yourself and set a high standard for reviews and implementation quality. - Make informed decisions about build versus buy, synchronous versus asynchronous processing, and consistency versus latency. - Work directly with client teams to deliver systems they can understand and operate. - Mentor senior engineers while remaining actively involved in technical work. - Challenge requirements when a proposed design is likely to undermine the outcome.

Requirements

- At least ten years of experience building and operating production-scale backend systems. - Deep expertise in at least one of Go, Rust, TypeScript/Node, Python, or the JVM, and ability to read and work across the others. - A strong record of distributed-systems decisions and the judgment to learn from trade-offs that did not work well. - Experience owning systems end to end, including schemas, APIs, queues, caches, deployment, and on-call operations. - Confidence making and explaining architecture decisions across multiple client settings.

Nice to have

- Experience building data infrastructure for LLM or retrieval systems. - Background with multi-tenant SaaS or regulated industries, such as healthcare or financial services.

Benefits and work setup

Full-time role with a stated compensation range of $205,000–$255,000 plus equity. Remote location is available across North America or Europe.