Staff Software Engineer (Backend / Distributed Systems)

Staff Software Engineer (Backend / Distributed Systems)Location: San Francisco, CAOn-site role requiring five days per week in the office in San Francisco.Compensation: $250,000 – $300,000 Base + Competitive EquityVisa: Open to visa transfers, including H-1B transfers and OPT. No additional visa sponsorship details provided.Company Stage: Seed / Early-Stage Technology CompanyIndustry: Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Identity Security, SaaS, Cloud Security, Enterprise Software, AI/ML, Identity Threat DetectionAbout the Company: Our client is building an AI-powered cybersecurity platform focused on protecting businesses from account compromise and identity-based company's platform helps detect compromised accounts in real time, identify suspicious user behavior, and automatically respond to threats before they can cause significant business damage.The product is purpose-built for organizations managing Microsoft 365 environments and provides automated identity threat detection and response capabilities for managed service providers and their customers.The company has achieved strong early product-market fit and is scaling rapidly, protecting more than 1.6 million users across thousands of businesses.The engineering organization is intentionally small and high-caliber, creating an environment where engineers have significant ownership over core infrastructure and product systems.As a Staff Software Engineer, you'll work directly with the founding team to design and scale the backend and distributed systems powering the company's real-time detection is a high-ownership role where you'll be expected to build production systems, establish engineering patterns, solve difficult scaling problems, and raise the technical bar across the ideal candidate combines strong backend and distributed systems expertise with experience building production software at scale, strong technical judgment, and the ability to operate effectively in a fast-moving startup environment.What You'll DoDesign and build backend systems responsible for detecting account compromise in real timeBuild systems spanning signal ingestion, behavioral analysis, and AI-powered decisioningArchitect scalable distributed systems capable of supporting significant growthDesign infrastructure to support 10–100x scale growth over the next several monthsBuild and ship ML- and AI-integrated systems into productionDevelop reliable backend services supporting real-time security detectionDesign high-throughput systems for processing security and behavioral signalsBuild systems that analyze large volumes of identity and security dataImprove reliability, scalability, performance, and maintainability across backend systemsEstablish engineering patterns and technical standards across the teamRaise the technical bar through architecture, code reviews, and engineering practicesWork directly with founders on the core detection platformMake architecture decisions that directly influence the company's technical directionOwn critical infrastructure from design through production deploymentSolve complex distributed systems and backend engineering problemsDevelop APIs and services supporting security detection workflowsIntegrate AI/ML capabilities into production backend systemsBuild reliable infrastructure for real-time decision-makingWork on systems requiring high availability and low-latency processingIdentify bottlenecks and optimize system performanceDesign systems that can scale with rapidly increasing customer and user volumeCollaborate closely with product and engineering teamsHelp establish development and operational best practicesMentor engineers and contribute to the technical growth of the organizationOperate with significant autonomy in a rapidly growing startupHelp evolve the platform as the company scalesBalance engineering quality, speed, reliability, and product requirementsContribute to zero-to-one technical initiativesTake ownership of ambiguous and technically challenging engineering problemsIdeal Candidate BackgroundExperience Requirements5–8 years of backend or distributed systems engineering experienceStrong backend software engineering backgroundExperience designing and building distributed systemsExperience building production systems at meaningful scaleExperience owning critical infrastructure or backend systems end-to-endExperience working in fast-moving startup environments preferredExperience working on high-growth technology products preferredExperience shipping production AI/ML-integrated systems preferredExperience working on security, identity, infrastructure, or data-intensive systems preferredExperience working on real-time systems preferredExperience solving complex technical and scaling challengesStrong software engineering fundamentalsStrong system design capabilitiesExperience making architecture decisions independentlyExperience working closely with founders or senior technical leadershipAbility to operate with significant autonomyDemonstrated ability to raise engineering quality and technical standardsExperience working on zero-to-one products or infrastructureExperience mentoring or technically guiding other engineersTechnical RequirementsStrong backend engineering fundamentalsStrong distributed systems expertiseStrong system design skillsExperience designing scalable backend architecturesExperience building high-throughput systemsExperience with real-time data processingStrong understanding of APIs and backend servicesStrong understanding of data modeling and storage systemsExperience designing reliable and fault-tolerant systemsExperience optimizing backend performanceExperience working with production cloud infrastructureStrong understanding of scalability and system reliabilityExperience with AI/ML-integrated backend systems preferredExperience building production ML/AI systems preferredStrong understanding of software architecture and technical tradeoffsStrong debugging and technical problem-solving abilityExperience working with observability and production monitoringExperience designing systems for high availabilityAbility to reason about latency, throughput, reliability, and scaleAbility to build maintainable and production-grade softwareExperience working with modern backend technologiesFamiliarity with Node.js and TypeScriptFamiliarity with PythonExperience working with data-intensive applicationsExperience with security or identity systems preferredAbility to evaluate and improve technical architectureStrong code review and engineering quality instinctsEducationBachelor's degree preferredComputer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or related technical discipline preferredStrong technical academic background is a plusEquivalent professional engineering experience may compensate for academic pedigreeStrong technical achievements or demonstrated engineering excellence are highly valuedSoft SkillsStrong technical ownershipHigh autonomyStrong engineering judgmentExcellent problem-solving abilityHigh attention to technical qualityStrong communication skillsAbility to explain complex technical concepts clearlyComfortable working directly with foundersStrong cross-functional collaborationLow-ego and feedback-orientedComfortable giving and receiving direct feedbackStrong mentoring instinctsAbility to raise the technical bar across a teamComfortable operating in ambiguityComfortable making decisions with incomplete informationStrong sense of accountabilityBias toward actionHigh