Senior Backend Engineer - SF

Requirements - Must Have5 years of professional backend software engineering experienceMeaningful time in a high-growth startup or high-scale production environmentDemonstrated ability to own and ship backend systems end-to-end in fast-moving, ambiguous environmentsTrack record of making sound architectural trade-offs under time pressure and revisiting decisions as requirements evolveStrong opinions about backend systems, held loosely, defended with clarityReal startup experience (10+ person company), not just big techSelf-starter, you prefer being handed a problem over a set of tickets and owning the outcome, not just the codeBased in SF or committed to relocating (in-person, non-negotiable)H1B transfer OK · OPT OK · No new sponsorshipRequirements — Nice to HaveExperience with distributed systems, message queues (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS), and event-driven architecturesFamiliarity with AI/ML pipeline infrastructure or document processing at scaleExposure to enterprise software requirements — security, data retention, privacy, complianceExperience with search infrastructure (e.g., Elasticsearch, pgvector)Background at a high-growth Series A/B startup or as a founding engineerLogistics, customs, or regulated industry software experienceTop 50 university background (soft preference, strong track record always wins)