Remote staff backend software engineer

Remote (US) | $200K–$280K Base + Equity

The Opportunity

An early-stage, venture-backed AI company is building a platform that transforms how physical environments are designed and managed. Its technology combines computer vision, spatial intelligence, and agentic AI to turn real-world spaces into interactive digital environments. The company has approximately 20 employees and is already working with customers ranging from smaller businesses to Fortune 50 enterprises.

We're looking for a Staff Backend Software Engineer to take ownership of the platform's backend architecture. This is a highly autonomous, hands-on role working directly with engineering leadership, the CEO, and a small team of talented engineers. You'll have the opportunity to architect and build foundational systems rather than simply maintain or extend an existing architecture.

What You'll Do

• Own backend architecture, technical direction, and implementation across the platform.
• Design scalable APIs, database schemas, and data models supporting complex applications.
• Architect distributed systems with asynchronous workflows, message queues, event-driven processes, and data pipelines.
• Build infrastructure supporting real-time collaboration, document versioning, and multi-tenant SaaS applications.
• Integrate AI and computer vision capabilities into reliable, production-grade backend services.
• Provision and manage cloud infrastructure using infrastructure-as-code tools.
• Collaborate directly with product, frontend, and AI engineers to translate business needs into scalable technical solutions.
• Establish engineering standards and help shape the technical foundation as the company grows.

What We're Looking For

• Approximately 6–14 years of professional backend engineering experience, with flexibility for exceptional candidates outside that range.
• Demonstrated experience personally architecting and building complex systems or products from 0 to 1.
• Strong experience designing APIs, database schemas, and backend data models.
• Hands-on experience with distributed systems, asynchronous processing, messaging, queues, or workflow orchestration.
• Experience at an early-stage startup or high-growth venture-backed technology company.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure and infrastructure as code.
• Ability to operate independently, make significant technical decisions, and remain deeply hands-on.
• Strong communication skills and experience working directly with technical and business stakeholders.

Preferred Experience

• Real-time collaborative applications or multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
• Complex backend platforms involving data pipelines, workflow engines, or event-driven architectures.
• Prior founding engineer, technical lead, or staff-level architectural ownership.
• Experience building backend infrastructure for AI-enabled products.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related discipline.

Technology Environment

TypeScript, Python, Go, Kafka, PostgreSQL, Temporal, AWS, and Pulumi. Experience with comparable technologies is welcome; expertise in every tool is not required.

Compensation & Location

Base salary: $200,000–$280,000
Equity: Competitive equity package
Location: Fully remote within the United States
Working hours: Meaningful overlap with US Eastern Time

Why Join?

This is an opportunity to take ownership of a company's core backend architecture at an early stage while working on genuinely challenging technical problems spanning distributed systems, real-time collaboration, multi-tenancy, computer vision, and agentic AI. You'll have significant technical autonomy, direct access to company leadership, and an opportunity to shape how a production platform evolves as the business scales.