Senior Backend Platform Engineer: Build Foundational Systems

Harvey; California (MO); On-site; USD 238,000 - 290,000; Full time

Job summary

Harvey is seeking a Backend Platform Engineer to design, build, and operate the cohesive backend platform powering all services. You will create shared frameworks and libraries to boost developer experience, reliability, and performance across teams.

This mid-to-senior role focuses on foundational systems, cross-cutting challenges, and enabling product engineers to move faster with confidence through strong defaults and documentation.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of software engineering experience building scalable backend systems or developer platforms.
• Proficiency in Python and deep knowledge of APIs, data stores, concurrency, and distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience with web frameworks and service architectures (Flask/FastAPI) and versioned APIs.
• Familiarity with caching, messaging, and database tech (Redis, Kafka, SQL/NoSQL).
• Track record of well-tested code and using CI to ensure reliability.
• Strong collaboration and communication skills across teams.
• Experience maintaining internal libraries/frameworks is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Develop and maintain Harvey’s internal backend frameworks and libraries that provide common capabilities.
• Create and improve APIs, service templates, and versioned interfaces for new services.
• Champion modern backend patterns like asynchronous I/O and streaming data processing.
• Design Harvey-specific abstractions covering authorization, streaming, and data governance.
• Embed reliability and observability with tracing, metrics, and tests.
• Collaborate with Model Infrastructure and Dev Experience teams to integrate components into workflows.
• Work with product engineers to promote best practices and provide a ride‑the‑paved road approach.

Skills

Python

API design

Distributed systems

Async I/O

Testing

CI/CD

Collaboration

Backend frameworks

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Flask/FastAPI

Redis

Kafka

SQL/NoSQL databases

Vector databases

CI/CD tools

Job description

Harvey is seeking a Backend Platform Engineer to design, build, and operate the cohesive backend platform powering all services. You will create shared frameworks and libraries to boost developer experience, reliability, and performance across teams.

This mid-to-senior role focuses on foundational systems, cross-cutting challenges, and enabling product engineers to move faster with confidence through strong defaults and documentation.