Staff Backend Engineer

Laurel is on a mission to return time. As the leading AI Time platform for professional services firms, we’re transforming how organizations capture, analyze, and optimize their most valuable resource : time. Our proprietary machine learning technology automates work time capture and connects time data to business outcomes, enabling firms to increase profitability, improve client delivery, and make data-driven strategic decisions. We serve many of the world's largest accounting and law firms, including EY, Grant Thornton, and Latham & Watkins, and process over 1 billion work activities annually that have never been collected and aggregated before Laurel’s AI Time platform.

Our team comprises top talent in AI, product development, and engineering—innovative, humble, and forward-thinking professionals committed to redefining productivity in the knowledge economy. We're building solutions that empower workers to deliver twice the value in half the time, giving people more time to be creative and impactful. If you're passionate about transforming how people work and building a lasting company that explores the essence of time itself, we'd love to meet you.

About the role :

We are looking for a Staff Backend Software Engineer to join our team. You’ll have a direct impact on engineering practices throughout our backend stack and are expected to raise the bar for the engineers around you. As a Software Engineer, you will work on a charter to solve high level business challenges with a collaborative, cross functional team. Your curiosity will serve you well in asking the right questions to understand the customer problems we're solving. Your ability to learn quickly, write, and design quality software will serve you well in delivering value to our customers incrementally. Ownership comes from the ground up, we empower our teams to understand and make an impact on the business.

What you will do :

Develop : Design, build, and maintain efficient, reusable, and extremely reliable code across our backend components of our applications.

Collaborate : Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers, designers, and other engineers, to gather requirements, define technical specifications and measures of success, and deliver high-quality software solutions.

Optimize : Identify bottlenecks and bugs, and devise solutions to mitigate and address these issues. Continuously improve performance, scalability, and security of our applications.

Innovate : Stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends and technologies, and proactively suggest improvements and new features to enhance our products.

Test and Deploy : Implement automated testing and continuous integration / continuous deployment (CI / CD) pipelines to ensure robust and reliable software releases.

Work with Product and Customer Success teams to flesh out business requirements and designs for those requirements and systems

Participate in an on call rotation.

Connect : We want you not just to build but to engage with our product and our users. Your input and opinion will be highly valuable and it is expected that you have many thoughts on how things should be done and why.

You will be a great fit if you have :

Education : Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Experience : 8+ years of professional experience in Backend Software development. Full Stack knowledge is a plus. Ideal candidates will have a solid understanding of modern web technologies and be comfortable working with large-scale data systems.

Technical Skills :

We expect you to have deep knowledge and understanding , as well as strongly-held opinions about some of the below technologies (or similar). We want to hear your thoughts on best practices, patterns, code smells, ways to improve performance, etc. What things would you teach our other engineers? What has bitten you in the past? What things help you consistently deliver software that is of the highest quality, and why?

Backend :

Required : Strong understanding of Typescript, Node.js, messaging queues (ie. AWS SQS), MongoDB.

Problem-Solving : Strong analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to think critically and creatively. Ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic environment and manage multiple priorities.

Communication : Excellent communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment.

Customer Mindset : Proven ability to engage with customers and understand their needs.

Domain Knowledge : Experience in AI is preferred.

Nice to haves :

Experience with Python (Django, FastAPI, or Flask). Familiarity with Airflow, PostgreSQL and NestJS.

Location :

This role will be hybrid and based at our office in San Francisco at least 3 days per week.

Visa Sponsorship :

Requests for Visa sponsorship will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Why join Laurel :

To date, we've secured significant funding from renowned venture capitalists (Google Ventures, IVP, Anthos, Upfront Ventures), as well as notable individuals like Marc Benioff, Gokul Rajaram, Kevin Weil, and Alexis Ohanian

A smart, fun, collaborative, and inclusive team

Great employee benefits, including equity and 401K

Bi-annual, in-person company off-sites, in unique locations, to grow and share time with the team

An opportunity to perform at your best while growing, making a meaningful impact on the company's trajectory, and embodying our core values : understanding your "why," dancing in the rain, being your whole self, and sanctifying time

We encourage diverse perspectives and rigorous thinkers who aren't afraid to challenge the status quo. Laurel is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status. We are not able to support visa sponsorship or relocation assistance.

If you think you'd be a good fit for this role, we encourage you to apply, even if you don’t perfectly match all the bullet points in the job description. At Laurel, we strive to create an inclusive culture that encourages people from all walks of life to bring their unique, diverse perspectives to work. Every day, we aim to build an environment that empowers us all to do the best work of our careers, and we can't wait to show you what we have to offer!