Backend Engineer

Position Title: Backend Engineer / Infrastructure Engineer (Senior) Location: San Francisco, CA (in-office ~60 hrs/week; hybrid allowed for long commutes) Position Type: Full-Time (Permanent) Work Policy: Primarily in-person; relocation assistance may be available Start Timeline: ASAP – urgent hire Compensation Base Salary: $130,000 – $210,000 (varies by level, performance, and location) Equity: Generous and meaningful equity package Notes: Competitive compensation with flexibility for exceptional candidates Role Summary The Backend Infrastructure Engineer will develop fraud/risk detection infrastructure and scale distributed systems. Responsibilities include building real-time processing systems, shipping end-to-end features with urgency, and expanding platform scalability to handle billions of events and millions of users. Core ResponsibilitiesShip end-to-end product features with ownership and urgencyScale infrastructure to support high-transaction systems and millions of usersDevelop distributed and real-time systems for fraud/risk detection or similar use casesBuild scalable fundamentals for the product across industriesCollaborate closely with engineering and product teams Must-Have QualificationsExpertise in distributed systems and real-time processingProficiency with big data technologies (Cassandra, DynamoDB, BigTable, or other NoSQL)Experience with streaming technologies (Kafka, Pub/Sub, etc.)Familiarity with scaling vector databases and LLM-based systemsAbility to independently own and deliver product features end-to-end Preferred QualificationsKnowledge of rate-limiting infrastructureExperience with Kubernetes or containerized environmentsExperience in observability or data visualization productsGrowth-stage startup experienceStrong credentials from top companies or top schools Candidate Red Flags Do Not Submit IfConsulting-heavy backgroundPrimarily contract-based experienceFrequent job hopping with short tenuresToo much DevOps or internal tools workFormer CTOs or long-time managers returning to IC rolesCandidates unwilling to relocate to SF if requiredExperience limited to non-complex projects (internal tools, dashboards, testing)