Staff Engineer, Backend SystemsLocation: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid, 4 days/week onsite) Company Stage of Funding: Series B (~$81M raised) Office Type: Hybrid Salary: $250,000 – $300,000 + Meaningful Equity Visa: Visa sponsorship available (including new H1B applications)Company DescriptionOur client is a fast-growing AI-native enterprise software company building the next-generation CRM platform.The company is reimagining customer relationship software for modern startups and growth-stage businesses, replacing legacy systems like Salesforce with an intelligent, AI-first platform that automatically assembles and organizes business context across email, calendar, meetings, and workflows.Previously known for building a widely adopted AI product with over 25M users, the company has successfully pivoted into CRM infrastructure and is now seeing rapid adoption, with hundreds of businesses signing up each week.Backed by top-tier investors including Greylock, Lightspeed, and Coatue, the company has raised over $80M and is exceptionally well-capitalized.The engineering team includes talent from Meta, Instagram, Google, Salesforce, Pinterest, and Llama, creating a very high technical bar.This is a rare opportunity to join as one of the earliest senior backend technical leaders and shape the foundational architecture of a product scaling rapidly toward category-defining enterprise software.What You Will DoLead architecture and execution of critical backend systemsOwn technical direction across API platform and core backend infrastructureDesign and scale multi-tenant backend systemsBuild highly performant Postgres-backed systemsDrive backend architecture for new AI-powered product capabilitiesOwn data model evolution for increasingly complex customer workflowsDesign systems for:Multi-tenant isolationAPI versioningRate limitingLatency optimizationQuery performanceSafe sandboxed execution for agentic capabilitiesPartner directly with founders and product leadershipLead complex backend projects end-to-endRaise engineering standards through technical mentorshipContribute to hiring and technical evaluationHelp define long-term backend architecture strategyIdeal Candidate Background8+ years of backend engineering experienceDeep expertise building and scaling backend systemsStrong experience with performance tuning and scalabilityExperience building production multi-tenant SaaS platformsStrong API platform architecture experienceExperience operating in fast-scaling VC-backed environmentsExcellent system design judgmentStrong coding abilityComfortable operating with ambiguityHigh ownership and initiativeStrong mentorship and technical leadership skillsWilling to work hybrid onsite in San FranciscoPreferredDeep experience with:Node.jsTypeScriptPostgreSQLAWSBackend latency / throughput optimizationExperience quantifying performance winsExamples:Reduced p99 latencyImproved query performanceOptimized database throughputExperience designing:Flexible data modelsCustom object systemsSchema evolution systemsAPI ergonomics at scaleEnterprise SaaS / CRM experienceAI platform exposureStrong product engineering instinctsExperience mentoring senior engineersCompensation and BenefitsBase salary: $250,000 – $300,000Equity: Meaningful early-stage equityVisa sponsorship available (including new H1Bs)Hybrid SF work environmentDirect collaboration with foundersHigh technical ownershipOpportunity to shape foundational architectureWork alongside elite engineering talentStrong long-term growth trajectoryWhy JoinThis is a rare opportunity to help define the backend systems powering a category-defining AI-native enterprise platform.You'll work on hard backend challenges involving:Large-scale multi-tenant systemsAPI platform designData model architecturePerformance optimizationAI-enabled product systemsYou'll shape both technical architecture and product direction at a company with exceptional funding, elite technical talent, and significant market momentum.If you're excited by deeply technical backend systems work with high product ownership, this role offers exceptional upside.