About the Role:We are hiring a Senior or Staff level Backend Engineer to join our core platform engineering group. In this high-autonomy role on a focused team, you will design, build, and scale high-throughput distributed systems that power our core backend services. You will own systems end-to-end - from API design and data modeling to deploying resilient infrastructure and monitoring performance in production.
What You'll Work On- Design, ship, and operate core distributed microservices written in Go and Python.
- Build real-time event streaming and data processing pipelines using Kafka.
- Architect performant, flexible API interfaces across REST, GraphQL, and gRPC protocols.
- Design efficient schemas and optimize query performance for relational storage using Postgres and modern ORMs.
- Provision, maintain, and scale cloud infrastructure across GCP and AWS using Terraform and GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines.
- Ensure high reliability, low latency, and operational visibility across backend systems using Datadog
What We're Looking For- 7+ years building and operating backend systems in production.
- Deep comfort with Go and Python, with strong experience building concurrent, high-performance systems.
- Strong database fundamentals with Postgres and relational ORMs, including query optimization and schema migration strategies.
- Experience building and maintaining event-driven architectures with Kafka.
- Expertise designing production APIs across REST, GraphQL, or gRPC.
- Hands-on experience with cloud environments (GCP and/or AWS), Infrastructure as Code via Terraform, and continuous delivery via GitHub Actions.
- Operational mindset: familiarity with observability, distributed tracing, and metrics tooling in Datadog.
- Strong written communication to author design docs and lead clear PR reviews.
- Own a technical domain with light supervision: propose direction in writing with clear specs, take review, ship, and carry the pager for what you shipped.
Why you'll love it here:- Competitive Compensation. For this role our salary is targeted at $180-210k USD or $175-205k CAD per year. Final offer amounts are determined by factors such as experience and expertise.
- Syndio Equity. So you can share in Syndio's success
- Flexible Vacation Policy. We encourage our team to recharge when they need to (up to 20 days PTO in Canada) plus paid sick & safe time, compassion leave, and voting leave.
- Medical, Dental, Vision. Syndio pays 90% of employee premiums, and 50% for dependents.
- Life Insurance & Disability. Syndio covers the full premium.
- Remote-first in US + Alberta; in Calgary, non-mandatory office available #LI-Remote
Role Progession- First 30 days: Onboard into our development workflow, master core platform architecture, and ship your first feature.
- First 60 days: Independently own sub-systems, optimize Postgres/ORM data paths, and manage cloud infrastructure updates via Terraform.
- First 90 days: Lead the design and implementation of a major event-driven or API capability end-to-end and take on-call responsibilities for platform services
The interview overviewBelow you'll find an outline of the interview plan for our
Senior / Staff Software Engineer (Backend) position. Please note that this is what we expect the process to look like; we may ask you for supplemental information or require an additional step before making a final decision.
- Recruiter Screen (25 min)
- Meet the Hiring Manager (30 min)
- Technical Discussion - Systems & Data Architecture (60 min)
- Practical Coding & API Design Exercise Review (60 min)
- Product Interview (30 min)
- Executive Interview (30 min)
At Syndio, we're building a diverse team that values candor, curiosity, and community. If you share these values and are interested in joining us, we'd love to talk with you even if you don't 100% meet the "about you" listed here. We don't expect anyone to have all the answers, as long as you're willing to learn and grow with us.
