Backend-Leaning Product Engineer
About The RoleJoin a small, high-ownership product team at an early-stage B2B SaaS startup as a backend-leaning product engineer. You'll own customer-facing features end-to-end, navigate messy integrations and legacy systems, and make product and engineering trade-offs with speed and strong judgment. This is a role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, moves fast, and cares deeply about shipping real products that customers use.What You'll DoOwn features end-to-end — from design through shipping and iteration — with minimal PM oversight.Build and maintain backend systems, APIs, data models, and automation pipelines.Integrate with external tools, legacy systems, and third-party services.Design workflows and orchestration for AI/automation-driven product features.Debug production issues and exercise strong engineering judgment under pressure.Collaborate closely with founders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders in a hybrid San Francisco setting.Balance full-stack work when required, with a clear emphasis on backend ownership.What We're Looking ForRequiredBackend-focused software engineering with hands-on experience designing, implementing, and shipping customer-facing features.Demonstrated ownership of the full feature lifecycle — ideation, implementation, and iteration based on customer feedback.Track record of shipping real products, ideally in 0-to-1 or ambiguous, fast-moving environments.Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills.Must be legally eligible to work in the US without employer sponsorship.Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate; hybrid/in-office presence required.Nice To HaveExperience with applied AI, agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, or LLM-enabled features.Python proficiency (modern web/backend stacks considered — engineering quality matters more than specific stack).Systems integration experience with external APIs and legacy platforms.Early-stage startup experience or founding engineer background.Not a fit if you are: frontend-only, data/internal-tools-only, pure DevOps/SRE without product ownership, pure research ML without shipping experience, or primarily motivated by corporate titles.Compensation & BenefitsBase salary: up to $275,000 depending on experience.Equity: meaningful equity package.No visa sponsorship available.LocationSan Francisco, CA — hybrid/on-site. Candidates must be based in SF or willing to relocate.