Backend-Leaning Product Engineer

About the Role

Join a small, high-ownership product team at an early-stage B2B SaaS startup as a backend-leaning product engineer. You'll own customer-facing features end-to-end, navigate messy integrations and legacy systems, and make product and engineering trade-offs with speed and strong judgment. This is a role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, moves fast, and cares deeply about shipping real products that customers use.

What You'll Do

• Own features end-to-end - from design through shipping and iteration - with minimal PM oversight.
• Build and maintain backend systems, APIs, data models, and automation pipelines.
• Integrate with external tools, legacy systems, and third-party services.
• Design workflows and orchestration for AI/automation-driven product features.
• Debug production issues and exercise strong engineering judgment under pressure.
• Collaborate closely with founders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders in a hybrid San Francisco setting.
• Balance full-stack work when required, with a clear emphasis on backend ownership.

What We're Looking for

Required

• Backend-focused software engineering with hands-on experience designing, implementing, and shipping customer-facing features.
• Demonstrated ownership of the full feature lifecycle - ideation, implementation, and iteration based on customer feedback.
• Track record of shipping real products, ideally in 0-to-1 or ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills.
• Must be legally eligible to work in the US without employer sponsorship.
• Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate; hybrid/in-office presence required.

Nice to Have

• Experience with applied AI, agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, or LLM-enabled features.
• Python proficiency (modern web/backend stacks considered - engineering quality matters more than specific stack).
• Systems integration experience with external APIs and legacy platforms.
• Early-stage startup experience or founding engineer background.

Additional information

Not a fit if you are: frontend-only, data/internal-tools-only, pure DevOps/SRE without product ownership, pure research ML without shipping experience, or primarily motivated by corporate titles.

Compensation & Benefits

• Base salary: up to $275,000 depending on experience.
• Equity: meaningful equity package.
• No visa sponsorship available.

Location

San Francisco, CA - hybrid/on-site. Candidates must be based in SF or willing to relocate.