Staff Backend Platform Engineer

Conversica is seeking a Staff Backend Platform Engineer to set the technical direction for the production backend systems that power our next-generation AI platform. This is a senior individual contributor role with platform-wide scope, focused on the architecture and engineering standards that make our agentic AI possible: integrations, data ingestion, messaging infrastructure, orchestration, and the data foundations our agents depend on.

This role operates with a high degree of autonomy and technical authority. You will shape platform architecture across multiple teams, set engineering standards that the broader backend organization adopts, and drive the long-term technical direction of our backend systems. 

What You'll Do

• Set the technical direction for Conversica's backend platform, owning architecture decisions that span integrations, data, messaging, and orchestration across the entire system
• Drive cross-functional initiatives that touch multiple engineering teams, partnering with AI Engineering, Product, and Integrations leadership to shape platform strategy and roadmap
• Define and evolve org-wide engineering standards for backend service design, data modeling, integration patterns, observability, and operational excellence
• Identify systemic reliability, scalability, and performance risks across the platform and lead the engineering response
• Mentor senior and mid-level engineers across the backend organization, raising the technical bar through design reviews, written technical guidance, and pairing on hard problems
• Represent the backend platform in technical strategy discussions with executive leadership and contribute to multi-quarter roadmap planning
• Build and ship production code yourself; this is a hands-on individual contributor role, not a pure architect role

What You'll Build

• Integration platform: inbound and outbound data processors, partner APIs, webhook ingestion, CSV bulk imports, sync logic, and resilient retry/backoff patterns for unreliable external systems
• Messaging infrastructure: email (AWS SES), SMS (Twilio), and chat (OpenAI Chatkit) delivery pipelines including throughput management, deliverability, suppression, and audit trails
• Platform services: the Campaign, Playbook, Flows, Contact, Knowledge, and Reporting services that compose our domain mode
• Data foundations: Postgres schema design, data models for contacts, conversations, campaigns, and configuration. Storage patterns optimized for both transactional workloads and agent retrieval
• Orchestration and event flows: FastAPI services, Celery workflows, EventBridge-driven event handling, queue management, and the action dispatch layer that executes agent decisions across CRM, calendar, and notification systems 

Success in this Role

In your first 6 to 12 months in this role:
• You’ve established the integration, data, and messaging patterns that other backend engineers build against, and the platform’s engineering standards are visibly stronger because of you.
• You’ve led at least one cross-team technical initiative end to end, including the consensus-building, design, delivery, and operational handoff.
• You’ve raised the operational maturity of the platform, measurably improving reliability, performance, or developer leverage in systems other teams depend on.

Qualifications and Experience

• Equivalent of 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with significant focus on backend platform, integrations, or data infrastructure - including hands-on responsibility for systems running in production at scale.
• Track record of leading cross-team or org-wide technical initiatives from conception through production, including the soft work of building consensus and unblocking other engineers
• Proven experience deploying and operating production backend systems at scale
• Strong proficiency in Python, including production experience with FastAPI, Celery, and similar async/queue-based frameworks
• Deep experience with Postgres including schema design, query optimization, and operating Postgres in production
• Experience working with large datasets and navigating real-world data quality challenges across heterogeneous source systems
• Experience setting engineering standards (service design, data architecture, operational practices) that other engineers adopted and built on
• Experience designing and operating integrations with third-party SaaS systems including handling rate limits, schema drift, and partial failures
• Strong background in modern cloud-based architectures, particularly AWS 
• Active use of modern AI coding tools (Claude Code, OpenAI Codex, Cursor, or similar) as part of your development workflow 

Preferred / Nice-to-Have Experience

• Experience working in B2B SaaS environments
• Experience integrating with Marketing Automation Platforms (MAPs), Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs), Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), or Dealer Management Systems (DMS)
• Production experience with Terraform, EKS, Datadog, and GitLab
• Experience operating messaging infrastructure including SMTP, SMS aggregators, or chat platforms
• Experience building platforms that AI agents or other automated systems consume
• Experience with Redshift, DynamoDB, EventBridge, and Redis 

What We Value

We care about what you’ve built and the depth you’ve developed. If you’ve owned and operated significant systems in production, shipped strong software end to end, written code other engineers were glad to inherit, or developed real depth in a backend domain, put that front and center. Show us what you’ve built, what problems you’ve wrestled with, and how you reason about tradeoffs in real-world systems.
 
Conversica is a remote-first company building AI-powered solutions that help businesses engage customers more effectively. You'll join a small, experienced platform engineering team and partner closely with our AI Engineering team to build the backend that powers our agent-native platform., influence the direction of the platform, and help build the durable, customer-ready systems that turn emerging AI capabilities into reliable products.
 
This is a full-time, exempt position. Our compensation reflects the cost of labor across several U.S. geographic markets and is based on role scope, experience, and job-related skills. Conversica offers comprehensive health, dental, and vision benefits, PTO, holiday pay, 401(k), and equity.