Backend Engineer

About the role

The ideal candidate will have experience working in close coordination with product, design, and machine learning teams, as well as have a background in building polished consumer applications. This role sits at the center of developing our newest products focused on programmatic, conversationally-driven language learning and will be an instrumental contributor to the future of our company.

Responsibilities

• Building novel AI-driven product experiences and user interfaces on the web
• Full-stack engineering, but focused on creating scalable backend systems
• Debugging complex streaming issues
• Owning the entire development cycle of features, from conception to production
• Writing code very quickly, shipping frequently, and making a huge impact on our business by helping us scale our content

Requirements

• 5+ years of industry experience working as a Backend Engineer, preferably in a fast-paced startup environment
• bonus: worked on an app that has been used by 1M users
• Excellent problem-solving and communication skills, and the ability to work independently or as part of a team
• Coach and mentor other engineers
• Strong product sense: ability to think broadly/cross-functionally about product experiences

Qualifications

• Strong understanding of software development lifecycle
• Experience with modern web technologies (JavaScript, React, Node.js)
• Knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Experience with databases (SQL, NoSQL)
• Experience with microservices architecture

Skills

• Backend development
• Full-stack development
• Problem-solving
• Communication
• Product thinking

Benefits

• Global in nature: We're live in over 40 countries and launching in a number of new markets soon. We have dedicated offices in San Francisco, Ljubljana, Seoul, and Tokyo, and you’ll have the opportunity to talk to users in each of these regions on a regular basis as well as travel.
• Impact people's lives in a major way: Learning a language is one of the single most life-changing skills one can learn, and right now 99% of people never achieve their goal because the process is broken. We’re helping millions of people achieve their goals and improve their lives.

Pay

We offer competitive compensation packages tailored to individual performance and experience.

Schedule

Flexible work schedule to accommodate different time zones and personal commitments.

Benefits

• Health insurance
• Retirement plans
• Employee discounts
• Professional development opportunities

Why work at Speak

• Join a fantastic, tight-knit team at the right time: we're growing very quickly, we've most recently raised our Series C from some of the top investors in the valley, and we've achieved product-market fit in our initial markets.
• You'd join at a magical time when a single person could significantly change the course of the company.
• Your life's work with people you’ll love working with: we care strongly about our craft and want every person at Speak to feel like they're growing every day. We believe in the idea that working with people you both enjoy and have respect for makes everything better.
• Hire thoughtfully and only work with people we admire deeply.