Staff Backend Engineer
Location - San Francisco, CA (Hybrid – 3 Days per Week)
Compensation - $200,000 – $240,000 Base + Competitive Equity + 10–12% Annual Bonus
Visa - Visa Sponsorship Available
(H-1B Transfers Preferred with 2+ Years Remaining)
Company Stage - Late-Stage Startup (~$1.5B Valuation, Profitable)
Industry - Consumer Marketplace, eCommerce, Collectibles, FinTech, Enterprise Software
About the Company
The company is building one of the world's leading digital marketplaces for high-end collectibles, enabling collectors to buy, sell, authenticate, and trade premium assets through a modern technology platform.
Its platform combines marketplace infrastructure, authentication technology, payments, logistics, and large-scale backend systems to support millions of consumer transactions while expanding into entirely new collectible categories. Already backed by industry leaders and prominent investors, the company has achieved profitability while continuing to rapidly scale its consumer platform and engineering organization.
Backed by world-class venture firms and industry leaders, the company is entering its next stage of growth by modernizing its backend architecture, launching new product categories, and evolving toward highly scalable microservices infrastructure.
As a Staff Backend Engineer, you'll own large-scale backend architecture, greenfield product launches, and platform modernization while working closely with product, infrastructure, and DevOps teams to build one of the largest consumer marketplaces in the collectibles industry.
This is a rare opportunity to join a profitable, pre-IPO technology company where you'll directly influence backend architecture, engineering standards, and the future of a rapidly growing consumer platform.
What You'll Do
- Architect and build scalable backend systems supporting a rapidly growing consumer marketplace
- Design and implement containerized backend infrastructure using Kubernetes and AWS
- Lead migration initiatives from monolithic architecture to modern microservices
- Build backend services powering new marketplace categories and product launches
- Design scalable APIs supporting high-volume consumer transactions
- Improve platform reliability through observability, monitoring, and production engineering
- Build distributed backend systems handling billions of monthly transactions
- Partner closely with DevOps teams to improve scalability, deployment, and operational excellence
- Leverage AI-powered engineering workflows using internal development tools, Cursor, and Claude Code
- Collaborate with Product, Engineering, and Business teams to define scalable technical solutions
- Mentor engineers through technical leadership, architecture reviews, and engineering best practices
- Own backend initiatives from architecture through production deployment
Ideal Candidate Background
Experience Requirements
- 8–15 years of backend software engineering experience
- Strong experience building production backend systems using Node.js and TypeScript
- Experience building and scaling high-volume consumer-facing marketplaces or eCommerce platforms
- Experience owning large technical initiatives from design through production deployment
- Experience working in startup or mid-sized technology companies with significant ownership
- Experience designing distributed systems supporting large-scale production workloads
- Experience leading architecture modernization or microservices migrations
- Demonstrated ownership of high-impact backend engineering initiatives
Technical Requirements
- Strong Node.js and TypeScript engineering skills
- Strong PostgreSQL and relational database experience
- Experience building scalable backend APIs and distributed systems
- Experience with AWS infrastructure and Kubernetes (EKS)
- Experience with Docker, Terraform, Redis, and modern cloud infrastructure
- Experience migrating monoliths to microservices
- Strong understanding of observability using tools such as Datadog and Sentry
- Daily user of AI coding tools such as Cursor, Claude Code, or similar developer assistants
- Strong debugging, performance optimization, and backend engineering fundamentals
- Strong system design and backend architecture expertise
Education
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related technical field required
- Strong academic background from a respected engineering program preferred
Soft Skills
- Strong communication skills
- High ownership mentality
- Excellent collaboration across Engineering, Product, and Infrastructure teams
- Comfortable operating in ambiguity
- Self-directed and proactive
- Bias toward execution
- Startup mentality
- Strong architectural thinking
- Customer-first engineering mindset
Preferred Backgrounds
- GOAT
- StockX
- Fanatics
- DraftKings
- Uber
- Airbnb
- DoorDash
- Instacart
- Stripe
- Etsy
- Whatnot
- Discord
- Early-stage consumer startups
- Marketplace companies
- High-growth B2C technology companies
- Product engineering organizations
Compensation & Benefits
- Base Salary: $200,000 – $240,000
- Competitive Equity Package
- Annual Performance Bonus (10–12%)
- Direct collaboration with engineering leadership
- Significant ownership over backend architecture and platform modernization
- Opportunity to build foundational marketplace infrastructure
- High-impact engineering role
- Exposure to modern AI-powered software development workflows
- Rapid career growth opportunities
- Hybrid collaboration with a high-performing engineering team
- Visa Sponsorship Available
Why Join
This is an opportunity to build the backend infrastructure powering one of the fastest-growing consumer marketplace platforms.
You'll architect scalable backend systems, modernize platform infrastructure, and launch entirely new marketplace categories while collaborating closely with engineering, product, and infrastructure teams solving challenging large-scale distributed systems problems.
As a Staff Backend Engineer, you'll have outsized ownership over backend architecture while helping define the technical foundation supporting the company's next phase of growth.
