Staff Software Engineer, Backend

What You’ll Do

• Design and build scalable, reliable, and resilient distributed services using Python and FastAPI
• Operate as an owner and technical leader within your team's domain and proactively assess and improve system performance and reliability
• Drive engineering excellence through best practices in testing, monitoring, observability, and performance optimization
• Define and own technical roadmaps, breaking down ambiguous and complex problem spaces into clear project plans and deliverables
• Mentor and collaborate with engineers across levels, raising the technical bar and fostering growth across the team
• Lead cross-functional technical efforts — working closely with product managers, designers, and engineers from adjacent teams to ensure alignment and technical integrity across boundaries
• Participate in on-call rotations to ensure reliability of production systems

What You’ll Bring to the Team

• 7 - 10+ years of software engineering experience, including experience in roles involving technical leadership
• Experience architecting, designing and building scalable web applications and distributed systems
• Proficiency with Python, relational databases, and frameworks like FastAPI or Django, with hands-on experience in metrics instrumentation and data-driven performance tuning leveraging Ro’s load testing infrastructure and tools like Datadog
• Proven track record of scaling complex, data-intensive backend systems through rapid growth (ideally in a mid-to-late stage startup environment), ensuring high performance and availability
• Deep understanding of distributed systems-data consistency, communication patterns, and service boundaries-backed by hands-on experience building and maintaining data-intensive production systems
• Strong sense of ownership, with the ability to understand and break down complex problem spaces into technical roadmaps
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, foster collaboration, and set technical direction

Bonus Skills

• Experience in telehealth or other highly regulated industries
• Experience with decoupling monolithic applications into distributed asynchronous services

We’ve Got You Covered

• Full medical, dental, and vision insurance + OneMedical membership
• Healthcare and Dependent Care FSA
• 401(k) with company match
• Flexible PTO
• Wellbeing + Learning & Growth reimbursements
• Paid parental leave + Fertility benefits
• Pet insurance
• Student loan refinancing
• Virtual resources for mindfulness, counseling, and fitness