Staff Backend Engineer

Company: Talnt
Location: San Francisco
Posted on: February 16, 2026

Job Description:

Job Description Job Description About the Role: The Backend Engineer is a founding level engineering role responsible for architecting, building, and scaling the core backend systems that power an AI driven code generation platform. This position owns the backend infrastructure, real time systems, streaming architecture, and performance critical services that enable complex project state management and seamless client experiences. The role is ideal for an engineer who thrives on building sophisticated distributed systems and cares deeply about reliability, scalability, and technical elegance. Responsibilities: Architect and implement scalable backend systems that support real time interactions, streaming responses, and complex application state. Design and maintain APIs and services that power AI driven workflows and client applications. Build and optimize reliable streaming infrastructure for chat based or event driven applications. Develop backend services that manage complex project state, persistence layers, and data synchronization. Implement headless browser workflows using tools such as Puppeteer and Chromium to execute backend jobs. Optimize system performance, latency, and throughput across backend services. Ensure high availability, reliability, and fault tolerance in production environments. Collaborate closely with frontend engineers and founders to define system architecture and technical roadmap. Establish backend best practices for observability, monitoring, logging, and security. Rapidly prototype, iterate, and ship backend features while maintaining clean, maintainable code. Qualifications: Demonstrated impactful backend work at a technically sophisticated company, significant open source contributions, or a highly impressive portfolio of backend systems. Experience building complex backend systems for chat applications or real time streaming platforms. Strong expertise in reliable streaming architectures and client server communication patterns. Proficiency with headless browser automation using Puppeteer, Chromium, or similar technologies. Experience designing systems that manage complex application or project state. Strong understanding of performance optimization, scalability, and distributed systems principles. Proven ability to ship high quality production systems in fast moving startup environments. Desired Qualifications: Experience building AI powered platforms, developer tools, or collaborative applications. Deep familiarity with cloud infrastructure, containerization, and deployment pipelines. Strong knowledge of database design, caching strategies, and event driven architectures. Experience in early stage startups or founding engineering roles.

Keywords: Talnt, Newark , Staff Backend Engineer, IT / Software / Systems , San Francisco, California