Provide technical leadership and architectural guidance across five Core product teams, serving as the primary backend staff engineer for this area of the product.
Float across teams where support is needed: stepping in on high-priority projects, unblocking engineers, and ensuring work gets over the line without dropping the thread on your broader responsibilities.
Design, evolve, and support backend systems and architecture primarily in Ruby on Rails, PostgreSQL, REST, and related technologies, with a focus on performance and reliability at scale.
Get ahead of technical problems — proactively identifying, forecasting, and mitigating risk before it becomes someone else's emergency.
Ensure strong observability across Core systems, including Datadog dashboards, monitoring, and alerting.
Influence long-term technical strategy, balancing short-term delivery with platform health, scalability, and sustainability.
Create clarity around technical decisions, trade-offs, and direction in ambiguous or high-impact situations.
Set and uphold high standards for code quality, security, privacy, observability, and documentation through direct contribution, review, and mentorship.
Mentor senior backend engineers and, over time, help frontend-focused engineers build stronger Ruby on Rails skills.
Act as a force multiplier, enabling teams and individuals without overshadowing or sidelining others.

Requirements

Extensive professional experience building and leading software systems (typically 15+ years, but we value impact over years).
Deep, hands-on proficiency in Ruby on Rails (minimum 7 years)
Strong object-oriented programming fundamentals and backend system design.
Experience designing and operating systems using PostgreSQL and REST APIs in high-traffic production environments.
Familiarity with cloud-hosted infrastructure, including AWS.
Strong independent judgment and the ability to navigate complex, ambiguous problems proactively, not reactively.
Ability to communicate technical ideas clearly and empathetically to a wide range of audiences, including product managers, designers, and non-technical partners.
Demonstrated experience mentoring engineers and influencing technical decisions across teams.
You share context freely, create clarity, and build trust — hoarding information is a non-starter here.
You live and work permanently in the U.S. (We're not set up to hire outside the U.S.).

Benefits

meaningful equity
other benefits

Applicant Tracking System Keywords

Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.

Hard Skills & Tools

Ruby on RailsPostgreSQLREST APIsobject-oriented programmingbackend system designcloud-hosted infrastructureAWSperformance optimizationreliability at scalecode quality

Soft Skills

technical leadershipmentorshipindependent judgmentcommunicationproblem-solvingclarity in decision-makingtrust-buildinginfluencing technical decisionsnavigating ambiguitycollaboration