Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform

The role

This person will design and drive technical solutions for backend platform systems and foundational infrastructure. They will lead the architecture of scalable distributed systems, APIs, and platform services.

What you will do

• Design and drive technical solutions for key systems within Patreon's backend platform and foundational infrastructure
• Lead architecture and implementation of scalable distributed systems, APIs, event-driven systems, and platform services
• Contribute to and lead modernization efforts across backend architecture, service boundaries, data access patterns, and infrastructure
• Help establish and uphold technical standards and best practices around reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability
• Partner with product engineering teams to ensure platform capabilities align with business and product needs
• Drive technical decision-making for your team's projects, partnering cross-functionally as needed
• Help evolve operational maturity around incident management, resiliency, and production excellence
• Mentor Senior and mid-level engineers through design reviews, technical guidance, and hands-on collaboration

Required qualifications

• Significant experience building large-scale backend systems, with depth in distributed systems and platform architecture (typically 6-8+ years, or equivalent demonstrated expertise)
• Strong expertise in distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, and low-latency architectures that support millions of DAUs
• Experience with databases, caching systems, and storage technologies (e.g. MySQL, Postgres, Redis, DynamoDB)
• Strong understanding of data modeling, storage systems, caching, queues, and event-driven architectures
• Experience in performance optimization across APIs, databases, caching layers, and distributed services
• Strong operational excellence mindset, including incident response and production debugging
• Experience operating systems in cloud-native environments such as AWS and Kubernetes-based infrastructure
• Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Java, or Rust
• Ability to communicate architectural trade-offs clearly in writing and in cross-functional forums
• Experience mentoring Senior and mid-level engineers and contributing to engineering culture through design reviews, documentation, or team standards

Benefits

• salary
• equity plans
• healthcare
• flexible time off
• company holidays and recharge days
• commuter benefits
• lifestyle stipends
• learning and development stipends
• patronage
• parental leave
• 401k plan with matching

About the company

Patreon is a media and community platform where over 300,000 creators give their biggest fans access to exclusive work and experiences. The company aims to fund the creative class.