Staff Software Engineer, Backend

About the Role

We're seeking a Staff Software Engineer to lead the design and evolution of our backend systems that power Cresta's AI platform. You'll architect scalable, distributed systems that enable enterprise AI agents to deliver exceptional customer experiences through voice and digital channels. This role offers the opportunity to shape technical strategy, mentor engineers, and build production systems at the intersection of AI and enterprise software.

This is a generic backend engineering hire. Team matching will be conducted during the later stages of the hiring process based on your interests, experience, and team needs. You'll have the opportunity to explore different team areas and find the best fit for your skills and career goals.

Key Responsibilities

• Architecture & Leadership: Lead the architecture and evolution of large-scale distributed backend systems, driving cross-team technical initiatives from design through production
• Scalable Systems Design: Build high-performance, fault-tolerant backend services supporting real-time AI agents, conversation intelligence, and enterprise integrations
• AI/ML Collaboration: Partner with ML engineers to operationalize AI capabilities, building the runtime infrastructure and orchestration systems that power AI agents at scale
• Data & Storage Solutions: Design and optimize data storage and retrieval systems for real-time analytics and insights
• Production Excellence: Drive continuous improvements in system performance, cost efficiency, and scalability to handle high-volume production workloads
• Technical Mentorship: Mentor senior engineers, influence technical roadmap, and raise the bar for engineering quality across teams

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field
• 8+ years building scalable backend systems in production environments
• Proven experience leading large-scale distributed system architecture with deep understanding of consistency, fault tolerance, state management, and concurrency
• Strong proficiency in at least one major programming language (Python, Go, Java, C++, or similar)
• Strong API design expertise (REST, gRPC) and service-oriented architectures
• Experience with database design and optimization across SQL and NoSQL systems
• Hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker)
• Cloud platform expertise