Lead Software Engineer, Backend Services

We’re on a mission to unleash the power of content — and we’re looking for a Lead Software Engineer who has genuinely changed how they work because of AI. For you, Claude, Cursor, and coding agents aren’t novelties; they’re a fundamentally different way of thinking about software development. You’ll build and enhance the services for our Enterprise Platform, including our centralized management tool, middleware, and backend services that oversee data access, event management, authentication, and integration with external systems. This is a hands-on leadership role where you’ll architect and ship software, raise the bar through code review and mentorship, and help the team transition fast without sacrificing reliability.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, and deploy AI-driven applications using Vertex AI (Gemini) and Databricks Genie, treating output verification and failure handling as critical engineering tasks
• Design, implement, and deploy scalable and secure Golang and Node.js services
• Design and maintain data-intensive, high-throughput gRPC and RESTful APIs
• Design APIs for event-driven systems, integrating with Kafka, Pub/Sub, or similar messaging platforms
• Create front-end systems to support content, personalization, and collaboration experiences for real-time decision-making
• Define and implement API standards and best practices, including versioning, contract design, and backward compatibility
• Collaborate with frontend, backend, data, and platform teams to ensure clean, reliable system integrations
• Evolve existing content management and metadata APIs to support dynamic, personalized experiences
• Contribute to CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and release processes for safe and proficient deployments
• Participate in architecture discussions, RFCs, and cross-team technical initiatives
• Lead code reviews that catch subtle errors, missed edge cases, and performance traps beyond what automated tools surface
• Mentor engineers and promote best practices in API design and system development

Requirements

• BS degree or higher in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field
• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with 2+ years in a technical lead or senior engineering role
• 3+ years of experience developing application services using Golang, Node, and front-end frameworks/libraries like React
• 3+ years of experience with cloud platforms (AWS or GCP) and containerized environments (Docker, Kubernetes)
• 3+ years of experience with Linux systems or shell scripting
• 3+ years of experience writing and using APIs to consume and push data to MongoDB
• 3+ years of experience building highly scalable, performant, and responsive web applications
• 2+ years of daily hands-on AI-assisted development using Claude, Cursor, or similar tools
• Solid experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and data modeling
• Solid knowledge of event-driven architectures (Kafka, Pub/Sub, Kinesis) and asynchronous API patterns
• Solid skills in API design, including REST and GraphQL; experience with contract-first development and OpenAPI/Swagger, plus insight into versioning strategies
• Experience designing APIs for high-scale, low-latency systems
• Experience integrating APIs with data pipelines, content systems, and real-time services
• Solid experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and API validation strategies
• Exemplary communication skills and ability to drive technical alignment across teams
• Experience integrating with external systems in a distributed enterprise environment
• Experience working within a globally distributed team

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience designing agentic or multi-step AI workflows on platforms like Vertex AI or Databricks Genie
• Knowledge of 3rd party authorization and authentication APIs and software
• VOD Streaming experience
• Experience with multi-region or multi-tenant architectures
• Infrastructure as code and deployment tooling (Helm, ArgoCD, Terraform)
• Comfortable working with observability and monitoring platforms (Grafana, Prometheus, Datadog, or similar)
• Experience with Redis (caching, RediSearch) and NoSQL data stores
• Knowledge of OAuth2/OIDC authentication and authorization patterns
• Experience building reliable, well-tested systems at scale, including integration testing with TestContainers and E2E testing with Playwright or similar

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Life insurance and disability benefits
• Tuition assistance program
• Paid time off (PTO) or, if applicable, as dictated by the appropriate Collective Bargaining Agreement
• Bonus eligibility
• Generous paid time off
• Opportunities for on-site and virtual engagement events
• Unique opportunities to build community and connections

Pay

Hiring salary range: $156,800.00 - $235,200.00. The range applies to New York, California, Colorado, Washington state, and most other geographies. Starting pay depends on geographic location, market demands, experience, training, and education.