Staff Backend Engineer - Platform

Hi, I'm Stephen, Director of Engineering at Customer.io. I’m looking for a Staff Platform Engineer to join our growing Engineering team!

Some things you'll do

• Architect and build highly scalable, distributed systems in Go that handle mission-critical workloads.
• Lead design discussions and set best practices for fault tolerance, system reliability, and performance optimization.
• Influence the technical roadmap by identifying key opportunities for innovation and improvement.
• Drive large-scale architectural decisions, ensuring the platform is built for growth and operational excellence.
• Enhance inter-service communication by improving RPC frameworks, event-driven architectures, and data pipelines.
• Develop infrastructure automation to streamline deployments, monitoring, and scaling using Kubernetes, Terraform, and CI/CD tooling.
• Implement and refine observability strategies, leveraging tools like OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and distributed tracing.
• Mentor and support engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and continuous learning.
• Collaborate across teams, influencing product, security, and infrastructure decisions to align with long-term company goals.

About you

• Expertise in distributed systems architecture, including consensus algorithms, CAP theorem, eventual consistency, and leader election.
• Strong proficiency in Go (or another strongly typed language like Java, Rust, or Kotlin) with experience building high-performance services.
• Deep knowledge of cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and best practices for scalability, networking, and security.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes, Docker, and container orchestration tools.
• Proficiency in infrastructure as code (Terraform, Pulumi, or CloudFormation) to automate cloud-based deployments.
• Experience working with event-driven architectures, messaging systems (Kafka, NATS, RabbitMQ), and real-time data processing.
• Passion for automation, with experience designing and implementing CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Jenkins).
• Strong understanding of observability and debugging techniques, including monitoring, logging, and distributed tracing.
• Excellent problem-solving skills, with the ability to diagnose and resolve complex system issues efficiently.
• Proven track record of leadership, mentoring engineers, driving best practices, and influencing engineering culture.

What we're looking for

• 10+ years of experience in software engineering, with a focus on distributed systems, backend infrastructure, or platform engineering.
• 5+ years of experience designing and deploying large-scale distributed architectures in cloud environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence technical decisions across multiple teams.
• Proven experience designing and optimizing APIs and service-to-service communication patterns (gRPC, REST, GraphQL).
• Deep experience with databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, DynamoDB, or BigTable) and performance tuning strategies.
• A security-first mindset, ensuring best practices for authentication, authorization, and data protection.
• Strong communication skills, with the ability to present complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• A DevOps mindset, embracing automation, testing, and continuous delivery.
• Passion for mentoring and growing engineers, fostering an environment of collaboration and knowledge sharing.

About Customer.io

Our mission at Customer.io is to power automated communication that people like to receive. Today over 7,600 internet businesses use Customer.io to manage, send, and track the performance of emails, SMS, push notifications, and in-app messages. Unlike typical marketing platforms, Customer.io helps businesses increase relevance by using behavioral data: what people do or don’t do when logged in to a web or mobile app.

We are offering a starting salary of $160,000 - $225,000 USD (or equivalent in local currency) depending on experience and subject to market rate adjustment.

Benefits at Customer.io include:

• Unlimited PTO - we encourage at least 20 vacation days (in addition to holidays and sick days) so that you can unwind, unplug, and recharge
• 16 weeks paid parental leave (including adoption and foster care)
• 100% paid insurance premiums for you and your dependents
• 401k retirement matching - up to 5% dollar-for-dollar match to retirement contributions
• $1,500 annual healthy lifestyle budget (for gym memberships, classes, fitness equipment)
• $250/monthly Remote Work Stipend to be used for home internet, cell phone, and other miscellaneous remote work costs
• $300/month co-working space rental reimbursement
• $2,000/yearly professional education budget for conferences, courses, workshops, books, etc.
• $1,500 home office budget to make sure your working space is ergonomic and just what you need to do your best work!
• One month sabbatical after five years at Customer.io
• We also have opportunities to meet in person with your peers throughout the year

All final candidates will be asked to complete a background check and employment verifications as part of our pre-employment process.

Customer.io recognizes the stifling impact of systemic injustice on diverse communities. We commit to using our influence to increase inclusion and equity within the tech industry. We strive to build an inclusive team culture, implement bias-free hiring practices, and develop community partnerships to expand our global impact.

Join us!

Check out our careers page for more information about why you should come work with us! We are passionate about our core values of Empathy, Transparency, Responsibility, and Awkwardness and are looking for new coworkers to share and build that passion!

How to apply

Apply at the link below and tell us why you're interested in the position! ****We plan to respond to all applicants with a status update about your application.

At Customer.io, we prioritize authentic interest and applications in our hiring process. To ensure fairness and integrity, the use of AI or automation during interviews or assessments is prohibited. Candidates who do not adhere to this will be removed from consideration.

Here's what you can expect from our hiring process:

1. 30-minute video call with a Recruiter

2. 60-minute scaling interview with members of our engineering team

3. Take Home Assignment + 60 minute Assignment Review Call with members of our engineering team

4. Final Interview with the Hiring Manager

Zoom is the only video conference platform that we use, virtual interviews will be conducted using the video capability (i.e., not via the chat), and offers will be extended in writing on official Customer.io letterhead. Please be vigilant in all of your job search activity, and if you have any questions please contact jobs@customer.io.