Senior Software Engineer, Data Services

Alchemy

San Francisco, CA

HybridCareer-pivot friendly

Who this role is best for

Blockchain infrastructure developers with backend systems experience and strong API design judgment will find this data services role at Alchemy.

Best fit for

Candidates with experience in distributed data systems and real-time delivery frameworks
— “Build and operate blockchain ingestion, indexing, storage, and API-serving systems.”
Individuals who have independently designed and operated production backend systems
— “A track record of independently designing, shipping, and operating production backend or distributed data systems.”
Professionals with a background in API design and data contracts for developer-facing tools
— “Sound API design judgment, including compatibility, pagination, error handling, and data contracts.”

Things to consider

The role requires ownership of production systems and incident response responsibilities.
— “Participate in production support and incident response for the systems you own.”
Candidates must be able to handle complex data integrity challenges in distributed environments.
— “Handle reorganizations, retries, duplicate events, and historical backfills without silently losing or corrupting data.”

How to stand out

Highlight experience in building systems with explicit guarantees for ordering and failure recovery.
— “Develop streaming and event-delivery capabilities with explicit guarantees for ordering, replay, and failure recovery.”
Emphasize measurable improvements in data freshness, latency, or cost in prior roles.
— “You have shipped a customer-facing improvement and can show its effect on data quality, freshness, latency, or cost.”
Showcase work with analytical databases and streaming systems in your resume or interviews.
— “ClickHouse or other analytical databases; Kafka or similar streaming systems.”

Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · MediumAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

improved data quality
reduced latency
cost savings

Typical background

backend developmentdistributed systems

Skills & requirements

Required

Backend DevelopmentDistributed SystemsAPI DesignQuery PerformanceStreaming SystemsCost Optimization

Preferred

Blockchain ExperienceClickhouseKafkaBlockchain IndexersEVM Logs

Stack & domain

PythonReactClickhouseKafkaBlockchain IndexersEVM Logs And TracesFinalityNon-evm Data ModelsDeveloper-facing Data ApisReal-time DeliveryLarge Historical DatasetsStorage MigrationsPerformance OptimizationCost OptimizationLeadershipCommunicationDiagnostic SkillsAPI Design JudgmentCompatibilityPaginationError HandlingData ContractsFinanceHealthcareBlockchainWeb3AI

About the role

Original posting from Alchemy via Ashby

ABOUT ALCHEMY
Alchemy is the Web3 infrastructure and developer platform that powers millions of users and the world’s most innovative blockchain applications. From enabling $1+ trillion in financial transactions worldwide to scaling L2s and enabling DeFi, Alchemy provides the infrastructure and tools developers need to build reliable, scalable, and accessible experiences.
Trusted by companies like JPMorgan, Stripe, Visa, Franklin Templeton, Nike, and backed by a16z, Coatue, Silver Lake, Lightspeed, and Stanford University, Alchemy is building the foundational layer for a decentralized and AI-enabled Web3 ecosystem. For more information, visit alchemy.com http://alchemy.com.
THE ROLE
Build the systems that turn blockchain activity into data developers can use. Alchemy’s Data Services work includes token, portfolio, and transfer APIs, with streaming in the updated roadmap.
You will own backend projects from ingestion through serving, making data correct, fresh, and fast to query. You will work with Product and customer-facing teams to understand what developers need, then ship improvements and measure their effect on reliability, performance, and cost.
WHAT YOU WILL DO
Build and operate blockchain ingestion, indexing, storage, and API-serving systems.
Handle reorganizations, retries, duplicate events, and historical backfills without silently losing or corrupting data.
Improve query performance and data freshness. Make those properties observable to the team and understandable to customers.
Extend API capabilities and chain coverage, with tests for differences in chain behavior and data semantics.
Develop streaming and event-delivery capabilities with explicit guarantees for ordering, replay, and failure recovery.
Reduce the cost of storing, processing, and serving data through measured changes to architecture and query execution.
Participate in production support and incident response for the systems you own. Maintain monitoring, runbooks, safe rollouts, and fixes that prevent recurrence.
WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR
A track record of independently designing, shipping, and operating production backend or distributed data systems.
Strong programming skills in a production backend language, plus experience with databases, indexing, and query performance.
Experience reasoning about consistency, partitioning, asynchronous processing, and failure recovery.
Evidence that you can diagnose a production problem and improve the system beyond the immediate fix.
Sound API design judgment, including compatibility, pagination, error handling, and data contracts.
Clear communication and the ability to turn an ambiguous customer problem into a scoped engineering project.
Blockchain experience is helpful, but not required. You should be interested in learning how chain behavior affects data correctness.
HELPFUL EXPERIENCE
ClickHouse or other analytical databases; Kafka or similar streaming systems.
Blockchain indexers, EVM logs and traces, finality, or non-EVM data models.
Developer-facing data APIs, real-time delivery, or large historical datasets.
Storage migrations and performance or cost optimization under production traffic.
WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE
Within three months:
You have shipped a customer-facing improvement and can show its effect on data quality, freshness, latency, or cost.
You own a production component, have tested its recovery behavior, and have proposed the next improvement using operational evidence and developer feedback.
Benefits & Perks
🏥 Private Health Insurance
💪 Gym Reimbursement
🚅 Commuter Benefits
🌴 Flexible Time Off
🥙 In-Office Group Meals
🧠 Learning & Development Stipend
🌎 Company Sponsored Conferences & Events
🎧 Books & Audiobook subscription with Bookster https://landing.bookster.ro/

Source: Alchemy careers (Ashby)