Motive
Logistics & Supply ChainDirect Greenhouse career site

Staff Software Engineer, Backend

Pay
$200,000 – $235,000 per year
Location
San Francisco, CA · Hybrid
Job type
Full-time
Level
Lead / Staff
Experience
5+ years
Listed
30 days ago

Skills & highlights for this role

  • distributed systems design
  • scalable API design
  • cloud-native services

Also useful

  • Go
  • Ruby
  • Python
  • Java
  • Kotlin
  • Swift

Stated benefits & perks

  • Health
  • Dental
  • 401k
  • Pto
  • Life insurance

About the Role

As a Software Engineer at Motive, you will design and build scalable product and platform capabilities that power mission-critical customer experiences, with meaningful ownership from architecture through production operations. In this role, you will report into an Engineering Manager, and help shape technical direction, raise engineering standards, and mentor other engineers while partnering across product and engineering teams to deliver reliable, secure, and maintainable systems.

What You'll Do

  • Design, build, and ship scalable services, APIs, and product features with a strong emphasis on reliability, maintainability, and performance.
  • Drive technical design and make sound architecture decisions for new capabilities and improvements to existing systems.
  • Partner with cross-functional stakeholders to refine requirements and deliver high-quality solutions that solve meaningful customer problems.
  • Improve engineering excellence through code reviews, testing, monitoring, logging, debugging, and operational best practices.
  • Mentor engineers and contribute to team direction by sharing knowledge, providing technical guidance, and helping scale effective engineering practices.

What We're Looking For

  • 5+ years of software engineering experience building production systems, platforms, or customer-facing products.
  • Strong experience with one or more modern programming languages such as Go, Ruby, Python, Java, Kotlin, Swift, or similar.
  • Proven experience designing scalable distributed systems, data models, APIs, and cloud-native services.
  • Strong technical judgment and problem-solving skills, including the ability to identify risks, bugs, and bottlenecks early.
  • Experience mentoring engineers and collaborating effectively with cross-functional stakeholders to deliver complex technical initiatives.

Preferred Qualifications

  • 8+ years of software engineering experience building production systems, platforms, or customer-facing products.
  • Experience leading technical projects, designing distributed systems.

Pay Transparency

Your compensation may be based on several factors, including education, work experience, and certifications. For certain roles, total compensation may include restricted stock units. Motive offers benefits including health, pharmacy, optical and dental care benefits, paid time off, sick time off, short term and long term disability coverage, life insurance as well as 401k contribution (all benefits are subject to eligibility requirements). Learn more about our benefits by visiting Motive Perks & Benefits

The base compensation range for this role is

$200,000—$235,000 USD

Please review our Candidate Privacy Notice here.

UK Candidate Privacy Notice here.

The applicant must be authorized to receive and access those commodities and technologies controlled under U.S. Export Administration Regulations. It is Motive's policy to require that employees be authorized to receive access to Motive products and technology.

Regarding US-based roles, depending on your role and primary work location, Motive Technologies, Inc. ("Employer") discloses candidates may be required to execute a non-compete covenant with the Employer. This requirement does not apply to lawyers, interns, or employees working in CA, MN, MT, ND, OK, or where otherwise prohibited by law.

Non-compete covenant terms in all other jurisdictions will be subject to the applicable statutory requirements, including but not limited to, procedures, industry related prohibitions, or salary and compensation thresholds.

All job postings are for existing vacancies. Please note; some interviews or new-hire training sessions may be held in person at one of our global offices.

Who we are

Motive empowers the people who run physical operations with tools to make their work safer, more productive, and more profitable. For the first time ever, safety, operations and finance teams can manage their drivers, vehicles, equipment, and fleet related spend in a single system. Combined with industry leading AI, the Motive platform gives you complete visibility and control, and significantly reduces manual workloads by automating and simplifying tasks.

Motive serves nearly 100,000 customers - from Fortune 500 enterprises to small businesses - across a wide range of industries, including transportation and logistics, construction, energy, field service, manufacturing, agriculture, food and beverage, retail, and the public sector.

Visit gomotive.com to

Read the original posting

From Motive's careers page, first listed on Rolev.ai on October 10, 2026. Rolev.ai is not the employer.

How Rolev.ai helps with this application

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Common questions

What is the salary for the Staff Software Engineer, Backend role at Motive?

The Staff Software Engineer, Backend posting at Motive states compensation of $200,000 – $235,000 per year. It is listed as a full-time position. Final pay may depend on location, experience, and interview evaluation on Motive's official career site.

Where is the Staff Software Engineer, Backend job at Motive located?

This Staff Software Engineer, Backend position at Motive is located in San Francisco, CA (Hybrid). Always check Motive's application page for specific state eligibility or relocation policies.

What qualifications are required for Staff Software Engineer, Backend at Motive?

For the Staff Software Engineer, Backend role, Motive highlights 5+ years of relevant experience; experience with distributed systems design, scalable API design, cloud-native services. Rolev.ai can score your existing resume against these requirements and show any skill gaps before you apply.

How do I apply for the Staff Software Engineer, Backend position at Motive?

This listing links directly to Motive's Greenhouse application page. You can apply directly on Motive's site, or use Rolev.ai to check your resume fit, generate a zero-hallucination tailored resume and cover letter for this posting, and autofill the Greenhouse application form in 1 click with the Rolev.ai Chrome extension. You always review the form and press Submit yourself.