Senior Backend Engineer - Platform Services & Configuration

Seesaw; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Seesaw is seeking a senior backend engineer to evolve and build internal platform services, with emphasis on configuration and stateful workflows. You will own complex capabilities, architect scalable backend systems, and work directly with the Director-led Platform team to deliver secure, reliable production services.

You'll collaborate across infrastructure, client, and application squads, shaping interfaces and driving incremental delivery while maintaining security and observability.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional backend engineering experience.
• Strong Python and AWS proficiency and proven API design experience.
• Experience designing or migrating configuration, feature-flag, or settings systems.
• Experience building long-running or asynchronous workflows with clear state management.
• Understanding of distributed systems, concurrency, security boundaries, and operational correctness.
• Ability to simplify ambiguous system requirements into clean interfaces and incremental implementation plans.
• Strong independent delivery, clear communication, and comfort owning consequential work in a small, director-led engineering team.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable backend services, internal APIs, and durable operational workflows.
• Evolve a layered configuration model across build-time, runtime, and customer-managed settings.
• Build and evolve runtime configuration and feature-flag capabilities with safe rollout and auditability.
• Model state transitions, configuration, orchestration, and recovery paths for platform capabilities.
• Design interfaces between shared platform capabilities and product-facing services.
• Apply authentication, authorization, and secure-by-default practices.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, client, and application teams to deliver production-ready systems with tests, docs, and observability.

Skills

Backend architecture

Python

AWS

API design

Distributed systems

State management

Security boundaries

Independent delivery

Job description

Build foundational platform capabilities on a dedicated, director-led team with high technical ownership and company-wide impact.

ABOUT SEESAW

Seesaw helps elementary educators deliver joyful, inclusive learning experiences through interactive instruction, digital portfolios, and connections between teachers, students, and families. Our mission is to provide every elementary student with joyful and connected learning experiences that lay the foundation for success in life.

YOUR TEAM

You will join a small, dedicated group of senior engineers assembled specifically for one of Seesaw's most critical technology initiatives. This is not a business-as-usual maintenance assignment: the team has a focused mandate to make consequential improvements to the foundations of our production platform. The group reports directly to our Director of Platforms, who will serve as the team's engineering manager and lead the work day to day. Working closely with experienced Core Platform engineers, you'll have meaningful technical ownership, direct access to engineering leadership, and the opportunity to shape systems that support millions of educators, students, and families. Our emphasis is on thoughtful architecture, hands-on execution, and incremental delivery without compromising security or reliability.

YOUR ROLE

We're looking for a senior backend engineer to evolve and build the internal platform services, especially configuration, that make a sophisticated SaaS product easier to operate and extend. This role calls for a mix of backend architecture, configuration and stateful workflow design, systems integration, and hands-on execution. You'll own technically complex capabilities with wide impact across engineering, spanning build-time configuration, runtime configuration, and customer-managed settings.

YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design and implement scalable backend services, internal APIs, and durable operational workflows.
• Evolve a layered configuration model spanning build-time, runtime, and customer-managed settings, with clear precedence, ownership, and storage, including migrating legacy settings code onto it incrementally.
• Build and evolve runtime configuration and feature-flag capabilities with safe rollout, validation, auditability, and rollback.
• Model state transitions, configuration, orchestration, and recovery paths for critical platform capabilities.
• Design clear interfaces between shared platform capabilities and product-facing services, including customer-facing settings and preferences.
• Apply sound authentication, authorization, auditability, and secure-by-default engineering practices.
• Collaborate with infrastructure, client, and application teams to deliver production-ready systems with tests, documentation, and observability.

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 8+ years of professional backend engineering experience, including technical ownership of complex platform services; equivalent demonstrated experience considered.
• Strong Python and AWS proficiency and proven experience designing dependable production APIs.
• Hands-on experience designing or migrating configuration, feature-flag, or settings systems used across many services or customers.
• Experience building long-running or asynchronous workflows with clear state management and recovery behavior.
• Understanding of distributed systems, concurrency, consistency, security boundaries, and operational correctness.
• Ability to simplify ambiguous system requirements into clean interfaces and incremental implementation plans.
• Strong independent delivery, clear communication, and comfort owning consequential work in a small, director-led engineering team.

NICE TO HAVE

• Experience building internal developer platforms, provisioning services, orchestration engines, or administrative systems.
• Experience with web or mobile build configuration, environment-specific builds, or remote configuration for client apps.
• Declarative workflows, reconciliation patterns, or event-driven systems.
• TypeScript or lightweight internal tooling experience.

WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE

Configuration is consistent, auditable, and safe to change across builds, environments, and customers; important platform workflows become repeatable, traceable, and recoverable; and other engineering teams gain dependable interfaces.

CONTRACT ENGAGEMENT

This is a senior, hands-on individual-contributor contract opportunity with a dedicated team led by the Director of Platforms. Engagement duration, location/working arrangement, and commercial terms will be discussed during recruiting.

A note on language:

Our team collaborates daily with US-based colleagues in English, so please submit your resume and application materials in English. We're unable to review applications submitted in other languages.

Seesaw values diverse perspectives and welcomes qualified candidates from all backgrounds. We aim to build inclusive teams that reflect the educators, students, and families we serve.

Our company participates in E-Verify.