Lead Backend Engineer - Developer Platform

Genies is culture’s avatar technology company empowering developers and artists to create their own interoperable gamified consumer experiences. The company has raised $250 million from investors including Silver Lake, BOND, NEA, and Bob Iger. Initially, Genies were adopted by thousands of Hollywood icons including Justin Bieber and Rihanna through partnerships with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Today, the company is also delivering avatars to the masses through experiences built with its Developer Kit and artist crowdsourced platform, The Workshop. These experiences all integrate together to form one avatar social network, Genies Party.

Genies is looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to join our Developer Platform Team and drive the development and growth of our backend services powering the developer platform and tools, core mobile experiences, and the AI infrastructure for our products. In this role, you will collaborate closely with other leaders across engineering, product and design, to define the scope and drive the execution of the Developer Platform. The Developer Platform is at the heart of Genies’ mission to build an interoperable Avatar network, and the products we build form the foundations on which internal and external developers build their avatar-based experiences and products.

Seated in either our SF Bay Area office (San Mateo) or Los Angeles based HQ, and reporting to the Director of Engineering, our ideal candidate has extensive experience with languages like Golang, Python, Java or C++. They are great leaders with the ability to influence their peers and mentor other team members. At the same time they enjoy hands-on coding, designing and working with APIs for both internal and external consumption, and thrive in solving really fun and challenging technical problems.

Genies will deliver on creating an interoperable avatar network. Are you up for helping us make it happen? Join us in shaping the future of avatar technology!

What You'll Be Doing:

• Design and develop scalable, high-performance backend services that power both mobile and web applications, ensuring reliability and scalability.
• Build with creativity and innovation while having opportunities to experiment with cutting-edge technologies and solutions applied everywhere from data storage to APIs to user facing experiences and games
• Build and operate a high quality infrastructure and service ecosystem, ensuring high availability, security, and performance
• Collaborate with the broader engineering team to help plan the company's long-term technology roadmap and define the future of our systems
• Support efforts to advance useful LLM and ML systems for end-users while gaining new knowledge from our researchers
• Lead efforts to scale our infrastructure horizontally and vertically to accommodate the growing demand for our avatar experiences, ensuring robustness and reliability even under increased load
• Demonstrate adaptability by taking on additional responsibilities as needed, contributing to the company's success and growth

What You Should Have:

• Must have completed a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field (Master's degree is a plus)
• 7+ years of professional experience
• Experience in NoSQL database design and development
• Experience in developing, designing and working with APIs, distributed databases and caching systems
• Experience with Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud Platform
• Proficiency in an object-oriented language such as Python, Golang, Java or C++  
• Robust exploratory/experimental skills
• Self-starter, analytical, creative, highly motivated with a visionary spirit
• Strong skills in terms of identifying and articulating goals and risks to management
• Team player with strong influencing skills

How Genies will support you

Genies is a well-funded, growing start-up that cares deeply about each of our employees' growth and success. Our roles and their responsibilities are created with a breadth of scope that introduces each employee to exciting new challenges and opportunities that a growing start-up encounters. The actual base pay is dependent upon a number of factors, including: professional background, training, transferable skills, work experience, education, location, business and product needs, and market demand. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. Full-time employees may also be eligible for equity compensation, in addition to a robust health, wellness, and benefits package. 

Starting Salary Range: $200,000.00 to $250,000 USD

Here's why you'll love working at Genies:

• You'll work with a team that you’ll be able to learn from and grow with, including support for your own professional development
• You'll be at the helm of your own career, shaping it with your own innovative contributions to a nascent team and product with flexible hours and a work from home policy
• You'll enjoy the culture and perks of a startup, with the stability of being well funded 
• Comprehensive health insurance for you and your family (Anthem + Kaiser Options Available), Dental and Vision Insurance
• Competitive salaries and 401K program for all full time employees 
• Flexible paid time off, sick time, and paid company holidays, in addition to paid parental leave, bereavement leave, and jury duty leave for full-time employees
• Health & wellness support through programs such as monthly wellness reimbursement 
• Working in a brand new, bright, open-environment and fun office space - there’s even a slide! 
• Choice of MacBook or intel based laptop

Genies is an equal opportunity employer committed to promoting an inclusive work environment free of discrimination and harassment. We value diversity, inclusion, and aim to provide a sense of belonging for everyone.