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Engineering · San Francisco

Backend Engineer

San Francisco Permanent
Careers / Open roles / Backend Engineer

— About the role

The shape of the work

About the Role

We’re looking for a Backend Engineer who enjoys building scalable systems, designing clean APIs, and solving complex technical challenges. At this stage of the company, you’ll own projects end-to-end: scoping, system design, implementation, testing, deployment, and iteration. You won’t be siloed — you’ll work closely with product, design, and other engineers to translate product ideas into durable, maintainable backend systems.

This role is ideal for someone who wants significant autonomy, thrives in fast-moving environments, and is excited to contribute to both product and technical direction.

What You'll Do

  • Design, build, and maintain backend services, APIs, and core platform components.

  • Own major technical projects from concept to deployment and ongoing iteration.

  • Improve system performance, scalability, and reliability as usage grows.

  • Collaborate with product, design, and frontend teams to create seamless user experiences.

  • Develop and maintain data models, storage solutions, and integrations.

  • Write clean, well-tested, well-documented code.

  • Participate in technical discussions, architectural planning, and code reviews.

  • Contribute to engineering culture, best practices, and technical standards.

What You'll Bring

  • 2–5+ years of professional backend engineering experience.

  • Strong experience with at least one modern backend stack (e.g., Node.js, Python, Go, Java, etc.).

  • Solid understanding of API design, databases (SQL or NoSQL), and distributed systems fundamentals.

  • Experience building and maintaining production services.

  • Strong debugging, profiling, and performance optimization skills.

  • Product mindset — you think in terms of customer value and usability.

  • Ability to thrive in a dynamic, detail-light startup environment.

  • Strong communication skills and a collaborative approach.

  • Ownership mentality — you care about the long-term quality of the systems you build.

Nice-to-Haves

  • Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure).

  • Familiarity with containerization/orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).

  • Background in data pipelines, event-driven architectures, or microservices.

  • Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevOps practices.

  • Interest in helping shape engineering processes and technical direction.

Why You’ll Love Working Here

  • High ownership and autonomy — you’ll directly influence what we ship and how we build.

  • A product that customers love, with strong early traction and a huge opportunity ahead.

  • A collaborative, low-ego team that values learning, quality, and impact.

  • Competitive compensation, equity, and benefits.

Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity Statement

We are committed to equal employment opportunity in both principle and as a matter of policy. We will recruit, hire, train, promote, compensate and provide benefits to all applicants and employees without regard to ancestry, sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, gender, age, religion, religious creed, mental and/or physical disability, medical condition, military and/or veteran’s status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state and local laws. This policy applies to all recruiting, hiring, promotions, upgrades, layoffs, compensation, benefits, terminations and all other privileges, terms and conditions of employment. The firm complies fully with all federal, state and local equal employment opportunity laws.

— Package

What we offer

Salary band

Competitive

Public band. Same rate for the same role.

Equity

Meaningful

10-year exercise window from leaving date.


Plus 36 days off, six months fully paid parental leave, £2,000 learning budget, climate sabbatical every five years, private health, pension matched 8%, and a rail-first travel policy across our European studios. Read the full package →

— Process

How hiring works

  1. i

    Intro call · 30 min

    With our Head of People. Mutual scoping — your story, the role, package, anything you need to know up front.

  2. ii

    Deep-dive conversation · 60 min

    With the hiring manager. Real work in your domain, no trick puzzles. We share material 24 hours ahead so you can come prepared.

  3. iii

    Take-home · ~3 hours, paid

    A real task from our backlog. We pay £250 for your time, regardless of outcome.

  4. iv

    Onsite · half day

    London studio (or video). Walk through your take-home with the team, meet engineering and product, finish with a no-pressure lunch.

A bit about the team

You'll join a group spread across our European studios — academic backgrounds mixed with industry, peer-reviewed and opinionated. Quarterly we close ranks for a "field week"; recent ones included a co-op cocoa supplier in Ghana and a vertical farm in Lyon.

Mossroot team field work

Mossroot is committed to building a team as diverse as the supply chains we work on. We particularly welcome applications from groups under-represented in climate science.

© 2026 Mossroot · B-Corp Certified

Photography via Unsplash — ThisisEngineering, National Cancer Institute. Fictional brand, demonstration only.