Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer

Location: On-site in New York City, New York (relocation required if not local)
Work Setup: Office-first environment – in-person most days during the week
Visa Sponsorship: Not available

Role Summary

We are hiring multiple Senior Backend Engineers to design and build high-throughput, low-latency backend systems for a new privacy-focused product line serving demanding enterprise and institutional customers. You will work on greenfield architecture, take systems from 0→1, and own critical infrastructure that must be highly reliable, secure, and performant.

What You’ll Do

• Design, build, and scale high-performance, fault-tolerant backend services that handle significant request and data volumes.
• Own large-scale, multi-tenant distributed systems with a strong focus on correctness, reliability, and clear SLOs.
• Collaborate closely with mobile and frontend teams to define and maintain robust API and SDK boundaries.
• Build durable, highly available data and caching layers using technologies such as PostgreSQL, Redis, and NATS (or similar tools).
• Lead development of core enterprise capabilities, including SSO, SCIM provisioning, and secure data import/export flows.
• Partner with security and infrastructure engineers to harden production systems and align them with a stringent threat model.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of experience building and operating high-throughput, distributed backend systems in production.
• Strong systems engineering background with a proven track record of owning critical services end-to-end (design through operations).
• Proficiency in at least one of the following systems languages: Rust, Go, or C/C++, with willingness to work primarily in a systems language.
• Experience taking systems from concept to production (0→1) in fast-paced environments (early-stage startup or high-growth teams).
• Deep focus on reliability, observability, performance, and long-term maintainability.

Nice to Have

• Experience with privacy-tech, secure messaging, or cryptographic / end-to-end encrypted systems.
• Background working on products with strict security, compliance, or regulatory requirements (e.g., government, fintech, or critical infrastructure).
• Prior experience in early-stage companies (Seed – Series B) helping set technical direction.

Team & Culture

You’ll join a small, senior engineering team where every engineer has significant product and architectural ownership. The culture values integrity, deep curiosity about technology, and long-term craftsmanship over short-term optimization. We are motivated by building privacy-preserving systems that meaningfully raise the bar for security and reliability.

Compensation

• Competitive cash compensation at the upper end of the market for senior backend engineers in this geography.
• Meaningful equity in a high-growth, early-stage company.

Why This Is a Great Opportunity

We have just raised one of the largest Seed rounds in tech, backed by major VCs. This is a rare opportunity to join an early-stage company at the ground floor and play a foundational role in building mission-critical, privacy-first infrastructure for enterprise and institutional customers.