Staff Backend Engineer

Siftstack
Marina Del Rey, CA
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

Strong fit for experienced backend engineers who design and optimize distributed systems, with a background in hardware or telemetry-heavy environments and a willingness to work in a hybrid in-person setup.

Best fit for

  • Experienced backend engineers with a background in distributed systems and hardware telemetry environments
    — “building and operate rockets, satellites, autonomous vehicles, energy systems, defense platforms, and more”
  • Candidates with a proven ability to own features end-to-end and deliver post-launch improvements
    — “Own features end-to-end, from design to post-launch improvement”
  • Individuals with 7+ years of backend experience and a track record of scaling APIs
    — “Experience building and scaling APIs (REST, gRPC/Protobuf)”

Things to consider

  • Must be a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident due to ITAR/EAR compliance
    — “U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident”
  • Hybrid work arrangement requires in-person collaboration twice a week and full weeks every two months
    — “We collaborate in person twice a week—on Mondays and Thursdays”

How to stand out

  • Highlight your experience with real-time telemetry data processing and system optimization in your resume
    — “Design, build, and operate backend systems that process and store large volumes of real-time telemetry data”
  • Emphasize your contributions to observability and debugging in production environments
    — “Participate in on-call rotations, debugging live issues, and improving observability”
  • Showcase your ability to mentor and influence through code reviews and shared patterns
    — “Raise the bar through code reviews, shared patterns, and mentorship”
  • Demonstrate your hands-on experience with Go, Rust, or Python and Linux fundamentals
    — “Experience with Go, Rust, or Python, and strong Linux/networking fundamentals”
  • Quantify your impact on performance tuning and system reliability in past roles
    — “Optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and reliability”
Pace · Fast PacedCollaboration · HighAutonomy · MediumDecision Impact · Team

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

What success looks like

  • high performance backend systems
  • reliable and scalable APIs
Typical background
7+ years backend or infrastructure rolesstrong understanding of distributed systems

Skills & requirements

Required

Distributed SystemsGoLinuxSQLAPI BuildingKubernetesPrometheus

Preferred

Streaming Data SystemsPerformance TuningObservability Tools

Stack & domain

GoRustPythonSQLRESTGrpc/protobufKubernetesPrometheusArgo CDDatadogGrafana

About the role

Original posting from Siftstack via Ashby

ABOUT SIFT

Sift is the data infrastructure platform for hardware engineering teams. Sift turns high-frequency telemetry into engineering insights for mission-critical systems. Teams use Sift to build and operate rockets, satellites, autonomous vehicles, energy systems, defense platforms, and more.

Founded by former SpaceX engineers who built the tools behind Dragon and Starlink, Sift is building the data infrastructure to herald the AI era for physical systems.

IN THIS ROLE, YOU'LL:

  • Design, build, and operate backend systems that process and store large volumes of real-time telemetry data.
  • Own features end-to-end, from design to post-launch improvement.
  • Collaborate with Frontend, Design, and Data teams to ensure features solve real customer problems.
  • Optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and reliability.
  • Contribute to system evolution—migrating services, introducing caches, and improving storage or indexing layers.
  • Participate in on-call rotations, debugging live issues, and improving observability.
  • Raise the bar through code reviews, shared patterns, and mentorship.

THE SKILLSET YOU'LL BRING:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or another STEM discipline
  • 7+ years of experience in backend or infrastructure roles
  • Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals—state, fault tolerance, recovery.
  • Experience with Go, Rust, or Python, and strong Linux/networking fundamentals.
  • Deep knowledge of SQL and operational database experience (indexing, migrations, tuning).
  • Experience building and scaling APIs (REST, gRPC/Protobuf).
  • Strong debugging skills and a production-first mindset.
  • Familiarity with Kubernetes, Prometheus, Argo CD, and other modern infrastructure tools.

BONUS POINTS:

  • Experience with streaming or time-series data systems (Kafka, Flink, TimescaleDB, etc.).
  • Experience with performance tuning and profiling at query or service layers.
  • Familiarity with observability tools (Datadog, Grafana).
  • Background in hardware or telemetry-heavy environments.

ENGINEERING AT SIFT:

You’ll join a tight-knit team of world-class engineers building foundational systems for next-gen machines. Technologies you'll work with may include:

  • Frontend & Backend: Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Protobuf, React, TypeScript
  • Data Infrastructure: Apache Arrow, DataFusion, Flink, Kafka, Parquet, Rust
  • Ops & Tooling: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, GitHub Actions, Prometheus, Argo CD, Grafana, Linux

LOCATION:

Sift’s headquarters is in Marina Del Rey, CA (Next to LAX). We collaborate in person twice a week—on Mondays and Thursdays—and come together for a full week every two months. We are open to relocating candidates to LA or working from our San Francisco office for the right candidate.

Salary range: $200,000 - $260,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.

ELIGIBILITY:

U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.

Source: Siftstack careers (Ashby)

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