7+ years of software engineering experience, focusing on scalable backend systems or internal developer platforms.
Proficiency in Python (or similar languages) with a solid understanding of backend fundamentals.
Experience with web frameworks and service architectures, like Flask/FastAPI, designed for clean, versioned APIs.
Familiarity with caching and messaging technologies (e.g., Redis, Kafka) and database systems (SQL/NoSQL, Vector databases).
Proven ability to write high-quality, well-tested code and utilize development tools for reliability.
Strong problem-solving skills and enthusiasm for enhancing developer experience.
Excellent collaboration and communication skills for cross-team work.
Responsibilities
Develop and maintain internal backend frameworks and libraries to prevent product teams from needing to reinvent common capabilities.
Create and improve APIs and service templates that establish consistent building patterns for services.
Introduce modern backend architecture patterns to enhance performance and scalability.
Design domain-specific frameworks for cross-cutting concerns, enabling product engineers with out-of-the-box capabilities.
Embed reliability and observability by integrating tracing, metrics, and automation into systems.
Collaborate with teams to address unique challenges presented by GenAI-native applications.
Integrate platform components into the broader deployment and monitoring ecosystem with Developer Experience and Infrastructure teams.
Benefits
Supportive work environment focused on high-impact projects.
Opportunity to shape and innovate foundational systems.
Collaboration with cross-functional teams on cutting-edge applications.
Access to modern tools and frameworks that enhance productivity.
Focus on professional growth through best practice evangelism and feedback opportunities.
Full Job Description
Role Overview
As a Backend Platform Engineer at Harvey, you will help build and operate the cohesive backend platform that all our services run on. In this mid-to-senior level role, you'll design and implement shared frameworks and libraries that abstract common concerns, improve developer experience, and raise the baseline for reliability and performance across all teams. Your mission aligns with our platform charter: create "a shared foundation that enables product teams to ship reliable, observable, and performant experiences quickly and safely." By centralizing common work, you'll let product engineers focus on shipping features rather than re-inventing the wheel. This is a high-impact role where the code you write and the systems you build will amplify the productivity and quality of engineering across the entire company.
If you're excited about building foundational systems, solving cross-cutting technical challenges, and enabling others to move faster with confidence, we'd love to hear from you.
What You'll Do
Develop and maintain Harvey's internal backend frameworks and libraries that provide common capabilities (API routing, service lifecycle management, caching and messaging primitives, error handling interfaces, etc.), so product teams don't have to reinvent them
Create and improve APIs, service templates, and versioned interfaces that establish consistent patterns for building new services and features
Introduce and champion modern backend architecture patterns like asynchronous I/O (asyncio) and streaming data processing, continually evolving our platform for better performance and scalability
Design Harvey-specific abstractions and domain-specific frameworks-covering cross-cutting concerns (e.g., authorization, streaming) and areas like data governance and event processing-to provide product engineers with these capabilities out of the box.
Embed reliability and observability into the platform by building in tracing, metrics, and automated tests (shift-left), ensuring services built on our foundation are robust and easy to monitor
Collaborate with Model Infrastructure team to tackle challenges unique to GenAI-native applications - such as supporting high-throughput model inference, managing streaming and long-running API interactions, and designing abstractions for retrieval, context handling, and prompt lifecycle
Collaborate with the Developer Experience and Infrastructure teams (who own CI/CD pipelines, build tools, and release infrastructure) to integrate our platform components seamlessly into the deployment and monitoring ecosystem
Work closely with product engineering teams to gather feedback, evangelize best practices, and make the "paved road" approach a reality - providing strong defaults and clear documentation so teams can move fast with confidence
What You Have
7+ years of software engineering experience (post-BS/MS), including building scalable backend systems or internal developer platforms
Proficiency in Python (or similar languages) and deep knowledge of backend development fundamentals (APIs, data stores, concurrency, distributed systems)
Hands-on experience with web frameworks and service architectures (e.g. Flask/FastAPI, Bounded context services, microservices) and an understanding of designing clean, versioned APIs
Familiarity with caching, messaging, and database technologies (Redis, Kafka, SQL/NoSQL databases, Vector databases, etc.) and how to use them effectively for high performance and reliability
A track record of writing high-quality, well-tested code and using tools (unit/integration testing, static typing, CI) to catch issues early and ensure reliability
Strong problem-solving skills and a passion for improving developer experience - you enjoy creating tools or frameworks that make other engineers more productive
Excellent collaboration and communication skills, with the ability to work across teams and incorporate feedback.
Experience contributing to or maintaining internal libraries/frameworks is a plus.
Compensation Range
$238,000 - $290,000 USD
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