Staff Software Engineer, Surfaces

Job description

**This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, which manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Software Engineer, Surfaces based in the United States.** In this fully remote role, you will shape the architecture and modernization of critical backend systems that underpin enterprise customer experiences within an AI-powered technology environment. You will take technical ownership of core governance capabilities, including authentication, authorization, organizational structures, permissions, and billing. Working at the intersection of platform engineering, enterprise requirements, and AI-native product development, you will build secure, composable, and scalable foundations for the next generation of intelligent workflows. As a senior individual contributor, you will influence architectural decisions while remaining deeply hands-on with critical code. You will collaborate closely with product, platform, and engineering leaders to translate complex business needs into reliable platform capabilities. This is an opportunity to drive meaningful technical direction, mentor fellow engineers, and strengthen the systems essential to enterprise-scale growth. ### Accountabilities - Own governance architecture: Lead the end-to-end architecture of foundational systems covering authentication, authorization, roles and permissions, organizations, groups, and billing. - Modernize backend infrastructure: Refactor and strengthen business-critical backend systems to improve scalability, security, stability, extensibility, and long-term maintainability. - Build AI-native platform capabilities: Evolve foundational services to support composable, customizable workflows and the requirements of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered enterprise applications. - Define technical direction: Establish architectural standards for authentication, authorization, and organizational modeling, balancing immediate reliability improvements with long-term platform strategy. - Translate enterprise needs into technical solutions: Partner with product and engineering leadership to turn requirements from marketing executives, administrators, and Forward Deployed Engineers into scalable platform capabilities. - Drive hands-on engineering: Spend approximately 70–80% of your time writing and reviewing critical-path code, ensuring high standards of implementation quality and system reliability. - Provide technical leadership: Mentor engineers, improve backend engineering practices, and raise the bar for code quality, architectural rigor, and technical decision-making. - Collaborate across engineering teams: Work closely with product, platform, and Forward Deployed Engineering teams to ensure foundational systems support evolving enterprise workflows. - Support broader platform evolution: Contribute technical leadership beyond the immediate governance domain as engineering priorities evolve, helping advance the organization's wider AI-native architecture. ## Requirements - Strong backend engineering experience, including previous ownership of complex, business-critical systems and a demonstrated ability to prepare them for enterprise-scale use. - Deep expertise in at least one of the following areas: authentication and authorization, multi-tenant systems, or billing platforms, with experience designing and architecting these systems rather than simply maintaining them. - Proven experience building backend systems for enterprise customers, with a strong understanding of the security, governance, compliance, and reliability requirements of enterprise environments. - Excellent architectural judgment, including the ability to balance short-term delivery needs with long-term platform strategy and make informed build-versus-buy-versus-refactor decisions. - A track record of technical leadership as an individual contributor, including mentoring engineers, influencing architectural direction, and improving engineering practices and code quality. - A strong preference for hands-on engineering, with the ability and motivation to write and review critical-path code rather than focus exclusively on high-level architecture. - Working knowledge of AI concepts and their application to backend engineering, including large language models (LLMs), AI agents, tokens, credits, context windows, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and data governance. - A growth-oriented mindset and a desire to deepen technical expertise and increase impact as an individual contributor. - Experience with governance systems, including authentication and authorization, roles and permissions, and multi-tenant organizational models, is an advantage. - Familiarity with billing systems and usage-based pricing models is a plus. - Experience supporting enterprise requirements such as single sign-on (SSO), SAML, SCIM, audit logging, and compliance frameworks such as SOC 2 and ISO 27001 is desirable. - Familiarity with AI-native product development, including LLM integrations, agentic workflows, and RAG systems, is beneficial. - Ability to collaborate effectively with product and engineering stakeholders and communicate complex technical decisions clearly. ## Benefits - Annual base salary: $214,200–$259,000, with the final offer depending on relevant experience, skills, competencies, and certifications. - Comprehensive healthcare: Medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and their families, effective from the first day of employment. - Retirement savings: 401(k) program with up to 2% employer matching. - Equity participation: Opportunity to participate in an equity grant program. - Flexible paid time off: Flexible PTO, plus a $900 annual FlexExperience budget to support time away from work. - Wellness support: $1,800 annual FlexWellness budget to support personal health and wellness goals. - Home office support: A dedicated budget to help establish a productive home workspace. - Learning and development: $1,500 annual stipend for professional learning and career development. - Paid parental leave: 16 weeks of paid parental leave. - Remote work: Fully remote position open to candidates located anywhere in the continental United States. - Inclusive workplace: A commitment to equal employment opportunities and a diverse, supportive environment where people from different backgrounds can grow and contribute.