Backend Infrastructure Engineer

Job description

BACKEND INFRASTRUCTURE ENGINEER You'll work on the infrastructure that makes Firecrawl fast and reliable against a web that constantly changes and fights back. This is deep systems work: keeping success rates high against sites with aggressive defenses, managing the proxy layer that powers reliable data collection at scale, and pushing throughput and reliability under heavy, spiky load. When Firecrawl "just works" on a site that tries hard to stop it, that's this team. You'll own real infrastructure from day one, not tickets in a backlog. Salary Range: $190,000–$260,000/year Equity Range: Competitive equity — details shared during the process. Location: San Francisco, CA (Hybrid, on-site required) Job Type: Full-Time Experience: 3+ years in backend, networking, or infrastructure engineering Visa: Must be legally authorized to work in the United States. We're not able to sponsor visas right now, though that may change down the line. ABOUT FIRECRAWL Firecrawl is the easiest way to turn the web into data AI agents can use. One API call converts any URL into clean, LLM-ready markdown or structured data - the boring-hard problem everyone building with LLMs eventually hits, solved. We hit 8 figures in ARR in year one and more than doubled it in year two. We have 170k+ GitHub stars, and developers, agents, and category-defining AI companies build on us every day. Growth like this is rare, and we're just getting started. We're a small team punching far above our weight. Everyone here owns a real piece of the product and company, end to end, and runs it themselves - no hiding behind process or headcount. This is a place for people who want to work at the frontier: an AI company building the infrastructure other AI companies run on, not one bolting AI onto an existing product. We move fast, go deep, and are building the tools superintelligence will rely on to gather data from the web. WHAT YOU'LL DO - Build and maintain the infrastructure that powers reliable data collection at scale - Improve success rates against sites with aggressive defenses - Own the health, rotation, and cost efficiency of the proxy layer - Push throughput and reliability under heavy, spiky, real-world load - Debug hard, intermittent failures across the stack and make them stay fixed WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR - You've worked on networking, proxies, or high-throughput backend systems - You're relentless about reliability and comfortable in messy, adversarial problem spaces - You can own a system end to end and keep it healthy in production - You move fast and close the loop - you'd rather ship, measure, and iterate than perfect on paper WHAT WE'RE NOT LOOKING FOR - Someone who wants clean, well-defined problems only - Someone who avoids on-call or production ownership - Someone who needs the environment to be stable to do their best work A NOTE ON PACE We operate at an absurd level of urgency because the window for what we're building won't stay open forever. If that excites you, keep reading. If it doesn't, no hard feelings — but this role probably isn't for you. BENEFITS & PERKS For our U.S. Based Full-Time Employees - Salary that makes sense — $190,000–$260,000/year, based on impact, not tenure - Own a piece — Gain competitive equity in what you're helping build - Full coverage, no red tape — Medical, dental, and vision (100% for employees, 50% for spouse/kids) — no weird loopholes, just care that works - Life & Disability insurance — Employer-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance — coverage for life's curveballs - Supplemental options — Optional accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and voluntary life insurance for extra peace of mind - Doctegrity telehealth — Talk to a doctor from your couch - 401(k) plan — Retirement might be a ways off, but future-you will thank you - Pre-tax benefits — Access to FSAs and commuter benefits (US-only) to help your wallet out a bit - Generous PTO — 15 days mandatory, anything after 24 days, just ask (holidays excluded); take the time you need to recharge - Parental leave — 12 weeks fully paid, for all parents - Wellness stipend — $100/month for the gym, therapy, massages, or whatever keeps you human - Learning & Development — Expense up to $1,000/year toward anything that helps you grow professionally - Team offsites — A change of scenery, minus the trust falls - Sabbatical — 3 paid months off after 4 years, do something fun and new - Pet insurance — Because fur babies are family too - SF HQ perks — Snacks, drinks, team lunches, intense ping pong, and peak startup energy - E-Bike transportation — A loaner electric bike to get you around the city, on us INTERVIEW PROCESS Application Review — Send us your work and a quick note on why this excites you. Show us what you've built — proxy systems, networking infrastructure, reliability wins against hard targets. We care about what you've shipped, not where you went to school. Intro Chat (~25 min) — A quick conversation to get to know each other before we go deep. We'll talk about what you've been working on, what drew you to Firecrawl, and what you're looking for in your next role. Time for your questions too. Technical Chat (~45 min) — We'll dig into a real problem from our world — holding reliability under spiky load, keeping a proxy pool healthy, beating a site that fights back — and talk through how you'd approach it. Come ready to think out loud; we care how you reason, not whether you memorized the answer. Founder Chat (~25 min) — Culture, pace, ownership, and how you like to work. Time for your questions too. Paid Work Trial (1-2 weeks) — Work with the team on a real, scoped piece of the infrastructure — paid at a contractor rate. It's the truest signal for both sides: you see what building at Firecrawl actually feels like, and we see how you ship. Remote-friendly, and we'll flex around your current commitments. Decision — We move fast after the trial. If making Firecrawl "just work" on the sites that fight back the hardest sounds like your kind of problem, you should join us. 👉 Apply now.