Lead Backend Engineer: Real-Time APIs & Distributed Systems

Emploive; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 135,000 - 165,000; Full time

Job summary

Swish Analytics is seeking a Senior Backend Software Engineer to own core backend products, guide design through production, and collaborate with data, infrastructure, and product teams.

You will design high-traffic APIs, optimize latency and reliability, and work on distributed data processing with Kafka, Kubernetes, and cloud tooling. The role demands leadership, strong coding practices, and clear communication. This is a hands-on, strategic position in a fast-paced startup environment.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of production software engineering experience, including demonstrated technical leadership and ownership of backend systems.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the technical lead and owner for core backend products, guiding work from design through implementation and production operation

Skills

Node.js

Python

APIs

Distributed systems

High availability

Performance

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/CE/SE

Tools

Kafka

Docker

Kubernetes

Job description

Swish Analytics is seeking a Senior Backend Software Engineer to own core backend products, guide design through production, and collaborate with data, infrastructure, and product teams.

You will design high-traffic APIs, optimize latency and reliability, and work on distributed data processing with Kafka, Kubernetes, and cloud tooling. The role demands leadership, strong coding practices, and clear communication. This is a hands-on, strategic position in a fast-paced startup environment.