Head of Backend Platform Engineering

Harvey; New York (NY); Remote; USD 272,000 - 355,000; Full time

Job summary

Harvey is transforming how legal and professional services work with AI-powered workflows. As Engineering Manager, you will lead the Backend Platform team, shaping the foundations that product engineers rely on daily—from database access and caching to request handling and observability.

Your role will drive architectural boundaries, reusable building blocks, and automated safeguards, empowering teams to ship confidently at Harvey’s rapid growth pace.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of software engineering and 3+ years of engineering management.
• Strong backend architecture judgment and distributed systems experience.
• Experience building shared libraries or internal platforms used by multiple teams.
• Hands-on with Python and frameworks like Flask or FastAPI is valuable.
• Proven ability to hire, coach, and develop engineers with ownership.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the Backend Platform team with clear ownership and challenges.
• Define the platform's technical vision and roadmap with cross‑functional partners.
• Build shared frameworks for database access, caching, and request handling.
• Evolve architecture with Infra to broaden storage and replica capabilities.
• Improve latency, observability, and production reliability across products.

Skills

Backend architecture

Distributed systems

Python (FastAPI/Flask)

APIs

Observability

Reliability engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Tools

Git

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Harvey is transforming how legal and professional services work with AI-powered workflows. As Engineering Manager, you will lead the Backend Platform team, shaping the foundations that product engineers rely on daily—from database access and caching to request handling and observability.

Your role will drive architectural boundaries, reusable building blocks, and automated safeguards, empowering teams to ship confidently at Harvey’s rapid growth pace.