The roleYou're a platform generalist with real backend depth. You're happiest with genuine ownership and comfortable with the ambiguity of an early-stage company. This is a hands-on role first: you'll spend most of your time writing code and designing systems. You self-manage, you work across teams, and you already lean on AI coding agents to move faster. As the day-to-day of engineering shifts toward orchestration, design, and cross-team work, that's increasingly where you spend your time.
What you'll do- Design, build, and evolve the core backend services and platform infrastructure the rest of engineering depends on.
- Architect distributed backend systems and services that hold up under high traffic and data volume, and own the service boundaries, data models, and API contracts behind them.
- Design asynchronous, event-driven systems using queues, workers, and messaging where they fit.
- Integrate third-party platforms and services, and own the reliability challenges that come with them at scale.
- Build self-service platform capabilities so product teams can ship without waiting on you.
- Shape our data architecture across relational and document stores: schema design, storage choices, and the tradeoffs behind them.
- Keep the platform observable and dependable through instrumentation, sensible SLOs, and steady incident response.
- Raise the engineering bar by setting technical standards, sharing patterns, reviewing code, and mentoring engineers across levels.
- Own complex, cross-team projects from concept through production, aligning partners and keeping the work moving without being asked.
- Use AI coding agents, including tools like Claude Code, as a normal part of how you build.
Who you are- Deep, broad backend experience on complex systems. We weigh breadth and depth over exact years, but strong candidates usually have a decade or more.
- Fluent in TypeScript, Python, and Go, with three or four languages on your resume. Rust or similar is a plus.
- You've built robust backend services and platform infrastructure.
- You've architected systems and data schemas across relational and non-relational databases.
- Fluent with AI coding agents and use them daily to ship faster without dropping quality.
- Startup grit: you self-manage, stay hands-on, and partner well across teams.
Bonus points- You've mentored or led a small team as a player-coach, and you'd be open to doing more of that here over time..
- You have infrastructure and DevOps depth (Terraform, Kubernetes, CI/CD).
What we offer A close-knit and collaborative early-stage startup environment where every voice is heard and every opinion matters
Competitive salary and stock option equity packages
4 Medical Plans to choose from including 100% covered option. Plus Dental and Vision Insurance!
Learning & Growth stipend
Flexible long-term work options (remote and hybrid)
🥨 Free lunch provided in the office in NYC & Austin - you'll never go hungry with us!
Unlimited PTO; We truly believe in work-life balance and that hard work should be balanced with time for rest and rejuvenation
IRL / In-Person retreats throughout the year
Please note: All official communication from Trunk Tools will come from an email address ending in
@trunk.tools. If you receive outreach from any other domain, please disregard it or report it to us.
