Staff Software Engineer

Cambly Inc.

Staff Software Engineer leading technical direction for Cambly's AI-first products and backend systems. Collaborate with a team to deliver high-quality English learning experiences.

Posted 7/8/2026full-timeSan Francisco • California • 🇺🇸 United StatesLead💰 $200,000 - $230,000 per yearWebsite

About the role

Key responsibilities & impact

Own the product platform. Lead the design and delivery of our backend systems: APIs, data models, and services, and be accountable for them working in production.
Make the hard calls. Own the judgment that shapes product work, including how we model the domain and when to build for scale and extensibility versus building quickly for fast learnings.
Ship end to end. Take products from technical design through launch, and own major initiatives across the team.
Work across the stack. Pick up frontend, mobile, and data work outside your core when a product needs it, using AI to be effective in areas where you aren't the resident expert.
Set how we build. Raise the technical bar through architecture, reviews, and good practices, and turn the AI workflows that work into practices the rest of the team adopts.
Grow the team. Mentor engineers, review their work, and help raise the standard of everyone around you.

Requirements

What you’ll need

7+ years of engineering experience, with a track record of owning systems and leading them to production.
Deep backend ability: API design, data modeling, and production systems that hold up at scale.
You build AI-first. Directing AI coding tools to do the implementation, and spending your own time on decisions and review, is already how you work, not something you're curious to try.
You own your work and have the technical judgment to make the calls that come with it, including when to invest in scale and extensibility and when to optimize for speed and learning.
Comfortable working outside your core. You'd rather pick up unfamiliar parts of the stack and ship than wait for a specialist.
A product mindset. You care about shipping things learners actually use.
A clear communicator who can explain technical trade-offs to engineers and non-engineers alike.

Benefits

Comp & perks

Daily catered lunch.
100% of medical, dental, and vision paid, along with 401k matching up to 4%.
Maternity and paternity paid leave.
20 days of PTO, 9 days of sick leave, 10 company holidays, plus an end-of-year shutdown.
Helping people around the world unlock economic opportunities by learning English.

ATS Keywords

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Applicant Tracking System Keywords

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Hard Skills & Tools

API DesignData ModelingProduction SystemsAI Coding ToolsTechnical Judgment

Soft Skills

Clear CommunicationMentoring