What you'll Be Doing: Vagaro is seeking an accomplished Staff Engineer to act as a technical leader and systems architect for the platform that powers our business. In this role you'll set the architectural direction for the backend systems and cloud infrastructure behind Vagaro, driving the performance, reliability, and scalability that enable seamless experiences for hundreds of thousands of businesses and their customers. You'll operate across teams - shaping technical strategy, solving our hardest engineering problems, andraising the bar for the entire organization while staying close enough to the code to lead by example.
*This role is based onsite in Pleasanton, CA Monday through Friday*
Compensation- Base Annual Salary: $179,000 - $218,000
- Annual Bonus: Up to 10%
Your Impact: - Set the technical vision and architecture for Vagaro's backend platform - defining patterns, standards, and roadmaps for scalability, reliability, security, and performance across multiple teams and services.
- Architect distributed, cloud-native systems on Microsoft Azure (e.g., AKS, Azure Functions, App Service, Service Bus, Event Grid, Cosmos DB, Azure SQL, API Management), balancing performance, cost, resiliency, and operational simplicity.
- Lead the design of well-structured, high-throughput RESTful and event-driven APIs that support frontend applications, internal tools, and third-party integrations.
- Drive the design and optimization of data architecture across SQL and NoSQL systems - including data modeling, partitioning, sharding, and caching - to sustain performance at scale.
- Establish standards for secure, scalable authentication and authorization (OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, JWT, managed identities).
- Champion asynchronous programming, concurrency, and messaging patterns to build efficient, non-blocking, fault-tolerant systems.
- Define observability, monitoring, and incident-response practices that keep systems reliable and within SLA in production cloud environments.
- Partner with product managers, engineering leadership, and fellow staff engineers to translate business strategy into technical roadmaps, and to make sound build-vs-buy and technology-selection decisions.
- Provide technical leadership through architecture reviews, design documents, code reviews, and mentorship, elevating engineering practices across the org.
- Evaluate and introduce new technologies, Azure services, and best practices; lead cloud migrations and modernization efforts where they deliver clear value.
- Stay hands-on - prototype, build critical components, and tackle the most complex technical challenges alongside the team.
What you Bring: - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- 8-10+ years of software engineering experience, including substantial time working on backend and distributed systems, with a proven track record of systems and solutions architecture.
- Deep, hands-on experience designing and operating large-scale, cloud-native distributed systems in production.
- Strong, current expertise with C# and ASP.NET (Core/MVC).
- Extensive experience architecting solutions on Microsoft Azure (strongly preferred). Experience with other major clouds such as AWS or GCP is welcome, but Azure expertise is heavily preferred.
- Proven experience designing and scaling RESTful and event-driven APIs.
- Deep understanding of SQL and NoSQL databases (e.g., SQL Server / Azure SQL, Cosmos DB, MongoDB), including data modeling, partitioning, and performance tuning.
- Expertise in asynchronous programming and concurrency (async/await patterns).
- Strong command of caching strategies, performance optimization, and high availability / fault-tolerant design.
- Solid experience with authentication and authorization frameworks (OAuth, OpenID Connect, JWT, managed identities).
- Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes / AKS).
- Experience with CI/CD and infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Bicep/ARM, or Terraform).
- Demonstrated technical leadership - mentoring engineers, influencing without authority, and driving cross-team initiatives to completion.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain complex architectural concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Strong problem-solving, debugging, and troubleshooting skills, and a passion for building scalable systems and high-quality user experiences.
Nice to Have:- Deep experience with event-driven architecture (message queues, pub/sub, Azure Service Bus, Event Grid / Event Hubs, or Kafka).
- Experience leading cloud migrations or monolith-to-microservices modernization
efforts. - Experience integrating with third-party APIs (e.g., CRM systems, messaging
platforms, payments). - Experience building and scaling high-traffic, multi-tenant SaaS platforms.
- Exposure to modern frontend frameworks such as React
- Azure certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert or Azure DevOps Engineer Expert.
Why You'll Love Working Here: 💖
- Attractive Compensation & Performance Bonuses: Enjoy a competitive salary paired with performance-based bonuses
- Generous PTO: 15 accrued days, plus 10 company holidays annually.
- Health & Wellness: Comprehensive healthcare, dental, and vision plans for you and your family.
- Exclusive Perks: Discounts on attractions, theme parks, shows, sports events, movies, hotels, and more through TicketsAtWork. 🎟
- Beauty Perks: $30/month reimbursement for any Vagaro service, including health, beauty, or wellness treatments. 💅
- Food Perks: $50 monthly stipend for our onsite microkitchen and a complimentary DoorDash DashPass subscription. 🍽
- Growth Opportunities: College Assistance Reimbursement, access to EAP & Work/Life Programs, and a LinkedIn Learning account.
- Financial Security: 401k program with 4% matching and optional life/supplemental insurance.
- Stay Active: Access to our on-site gym, flavored water dispenser, and basketball court to keep you fit and energized! 🏀
