Staff Software Engineer (Backend)

Job Description

Job Description

Staff Software Engineer (Backend)About the Client

Our client is a well-funded, growth-stage education technology company building an AI-first learning platform. They blend premium, short-form video instruction with a robust adaptive engine to deliver personalized learning at scale for learners across K-12 and beyond. The team is small but rapidly growing, with deep partnerships across schools and districts and backing from top-tier investors.

About the Role

They’re hiring a Staff-level Backend Engineer to architect and scale the core services that power individualized learning experiences for millions of students. You’ll lead the design of data-intensive, AI-driven systems, set technical direction across services, and collaborate closely with educators and researchers to translate pedagogy into production software.

Responsibilities

Design and evolve adaptive learning backends that process massive streams of learner interactions and respond in real time.

Build orchestration layers for LLM / ML workloads that deliver safe, reliable personalization at scale.

Develop intelligent content and feedback services that time the right hint, explanation, or challenge to each learner.

Establish privacy, safety, and governance controls that protect student data while enabling responsible AI.

Create real-time assessment services and knowledge graph components that capture conceptual understanding, not just right / wrong.

Architect multi-modal pipelines supporting visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning experiences.

Drive reliability and performance across distributed systems (low-latency APIs, event-driven pipelines, and high-availability services).

Optimize for cost and efficiency; design for constrained networks and offline-first scenarios to broaden access.

Partner with teachers, students, and learning scientists to ensure solutions work in real classrooms.

Raise the engineering bar through mentorship, code reviews, and pragmatic technical leadership; contribute to open source where it helps the ecosystem.

Requirements

7+ years of backend engineering, including 3+ years at Staff / Principal scope leading complex, distributed platforms.

Deep expertise with Node.js in production; comfortable pushing the runtime’s limits when appropriate.

Polyglot architecture experience (e.g., Go, Rust, Elixir / Erlang, or modern Java) and sound judgment on when to use each.

Strong PostgreSQL fundamentals : schema design, query tuning, and scaling strategies for high-write, high-read workloads.

Hands-on experience shipping ML / LLM features to production, with clear understanding of their strengths and limits.

Proven track record building systems for millions of concurrent users and real-time requirements.

Cloud-native development at scale (GCP experience a plus) : microservices, containers, event buses, and observability.

Mindset : mission-first, data-driven, collaborative, and committed to responsible AI that augments (not replaces) teachers.

Work location : Primarily on-site in one of two U.S. hubs (Central and West Coast). Relocation support available.

Work authorization : Unable to sponsor visas at this time.

Benefits & Why Join

Mission & Impact : Your work will shape how a generation learns—bringing high-quality, personalized education to learners at massive scale.

Technical Challenge : Tackle hard problems at the intersection of AI, distributed systems, and learning science.

Strong Platform & Data : Rich education datasets, direct school partnerships, and the autonomy to build the right solutions.

Team : Builders from diverse backgrounds—former founders, seasoned platform engineers, educators, and pragmatic AI practitioners.

Compensation : Highly competitive base (typically high-$200s to mid-$300s) plus meaningful equity, with comprehensive health benefits, team meals, wellness support, and relocation assistance.

Growth : Clear ownership, mentorship opportunities, and a culture that celebrates bold attempts and fast, thoughtful iteration.