Senior / Lead Backend Engineer

Medal; New York (NY); On-site; USD 180,000 - 275,000; Full time

Job summary

Medal's backend powers real-time in-app communications and storage of billions of clips, feeding our ML-based recommendations and social features. You will collaborate with product, infra, and data teams to architect and build highly scalable, low-latency systems, designing critical APIs, evolving infrastructure, mentoring engineers, and driving decisions that impact millions of users.

The role requires 5+ years of backend engineering, strong Java skills, microservices, RESTful APIs, and

Qualifications

• 5+ years backend engineering experience with production systems.
• Strong proficiency in Java and building scalable microservices.
• Deep understanding of RESTful APIs and distributed systems.
• Relational DBs: MySQL/PostgreSQL with performance tuning.
• Systems that handle thousands of requests per second.
• Cloud infrastructure (GCP/AWS), CI/CD, and IaC.
• System design, architectural patterns and security best practices.
• Strong communication and leadership to drive cross-team projects.
• Bonus: Redis, RabbitMQ, or other brokers and DevOps/SRE experience.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build highly scalable, low-latency backend systems.
• Design and evolve critical APIs and backend infrastructure.
• Mentor other engineers and drive technical decisions.
• Collaborate with product, infra, and data teams to support millions of users.

Skills

Java

Microservices

REST APIs

Distributed systems

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Cloud (GCP/AWS)

CI/CD

System design

Leadership

Redis

RabbitMQ

DevOps

Tools

Terraform

Salt

GitHub Actions

CircleCI

Kubernetes

Job description

About The Company

General Intuition is the frontier lab for acting in space and time. We build large action models and world models that can perceive, predict, and act across virtual and physical environments. General Intuition builds on the strength of Medal, the world's largest and fastest-growing platform for gaming clips, where millions of gamers capture, share, and discover new games every year. We recently raised $320M at a $2.3B valuation led by Khosla Ventures with participation from General Catalyst, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos, to discover the next generation of real-world intelligence.

About The Company

General Intuition is the frontier lab for acting in space and time. We build large action models and world models that can perceive, predict, and act across virtual and physical environments. General Intuition builds on the strength of Medal, the world's largest and fastest-growing platform for gaming clips, where millions of gamers capture, share, and discover new games every year. We recently raised $320M at a $2.3B valuation led by Khosla Ventures with participation from General Catalyst, Eric Schmidt, and Jeff Bezos, to discover the next generation of real-world intelligence.

The Role

Medal's backend powers everything from real-time in-app communications and storage of billions of user-generated clips to our ML-based feed and social features. You'll work closely with product, infra, and data teams to architect and build highly scalable, low-latency systems, helping design critical APIs, evolving our backend infrastructure, mentoring other engineers, and driving technical decisions that impact millions of users.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience, with significant time in production environments
• Strong proficiency in Java and hands-on experience building scalable microservices
• Deep understanding of RESTful API design and distributed systems
• Relational databases: Experience with MySQL or PostgreSQL, including performance tuning and schema design
• Experience building systems that handle thousands of requests per second
• Comfort with cloud infrastructure (GCP or AWS preferred), CI/CD, and infrastructure as code
• Strong grasp of system design, architectural patterns, and security best practices
• Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to drive cross-team projects
• Bonus: Redis, RabbitMQ, or other message brokers and caching systems; SRE/DevOps or DevSecOps experience

Our Stack

Electron, React, Redux, Styled Components & other modern web-based technologies

C# and C++ for native Windows recording & more

Swift for iOS, Kotlin for Android

Java, Redis, RabbitMQ, Kubernetes for backend

Terraform, Salt, GitHub Actions, CircleCI for IaC and CI/CD

Compensation Range: $180K - $275K