Backend Platform Engineer: Build scalable internal tooling

Front; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Equity

Private health insurance

Paid parental leave

Flexible time off

WFH Monday and Friday

Mental health support

Family planning support

Lifestyle stipend

Wellness days

Winter break

Job summary

Front is seeking a Foundations backend engineer to build and maintain shared backend frameworks and internal tooling for engineering teams. You’ll design reliable systems, emphasize observability, and contribute to the fast-paced, high-growth environment at Front.

You’ll own CI/CD pipelines, collaborate across teams, and help shape our backend architecture with a strong emphasis on scalable, developer-facing platforms.

Qualifications

• We are looking for backend JavaScript/TypeScript engineers — this role is not focused on frontend development.
• Experience building frameworks, libraries, and/or developer-facing internal tools
• Experience building distributed systems with an emphasis on reliability, observability, and performance
• Exceptional software design fundamentals and a track record of delivering high-complexity projects
• Clear, structured thinking and strong communication skills — your stakeholders are other engineers, so the ability to explain technical tradeoffs matters
• Comfort navigating ambiguity: you can drive clarity and execute without a fully-defined roadmap
• Ability to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced, collaborative, low-ego, and high-growth environment

Responsibilities

• Building and maintaining shared backend frameworks, libraries, and internal tooling used by engineering teams across Front
• Designing and implementing systems with a strong emphasis on reliability, observability, and performance — including our task queue, batch job framework, database ORM, and real-time event infrastructure
• Owning and evolving our CI/CD systems, ensuring fast, reliable, and safe delivery pipelines
• Collaborating closely with other engineering teams to understand their pain points, establish shared patterns, and drive adoption of new frameworks
• Influencing Front's backend architecture and the engineering-wide standards that flow from it
• Navigating ambiguity, defining the right problems to solve, and delivering solutions of significant complexity

Skills

Backend JS/TS

Distributed systems

Observability

Software design

Communication

Ambiguity navigation

High-growth mindset

Tools

CI/CD

Database ORM

Real-time events

Job description

Front is seeking a Foundations backend engineer to build and maintain shared backend frameworks and internal tooling for engineering teams. You’ll design reliable systems, emphasize observability, and contribute to the fast-paced, high-growth environment at Front.

You’ll own CI/CD pipelines, collaborate across teams, and help shape our backend architecture with a strong emphasis on scalable, developer-facing platforms.