Senior Software Engineer - Backend

Toast; United States; Remote; USD 86,443 - 100,850; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Health, dental, and vision coverage

Flexible working hours

Professional development budget

Job summary

A fast-growing AI company is seeking a skilled backend engineer to design scalable Python services and APIs, shape backend architecture, and optimize database systems. Ideal candidates must have extensive experience in Python and knowledge graphs, coupled with strong SQL skills. This role offers a competitive salary of $120,000 to $140,000 CAD, comprehensive health coverage, and a remote-first work environment, allowing engineers to contribute meaningfully to improvements in patient care across North America.

Qualifications

• Extensive production experience building backend systems in Python.
• Hands-on experience with graph data stores such as Neo4j, including query optimization.
• Strong SQL skills with ORMs like SQLAlchemy.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable Python services and APIs.
• Define resilient backend architecture for growth.
• Own database schema design and performance tuning.

Skills

Backend systems in Python

Knowledge graphs and graph data stores

Strong SQL skills

API and distributed systems design

Cloud infrastructure knowledge on AWS, GCP, or Azure

Observability tools like OpenTelemetry

Problem decomposition and communication

Tools

Neo4j

Django ORM

SQLAlchemy

Job description

Job Description

Toast is recruiting on behalf of a fast‑growing AI company operating at the intersection of healthcare and enterprise software. The company is a venture‑backed startup of roughly 50 to 150 employees that is redefining how healthcare organizations engage with patients and manage contact center operations through intelligent automation. They are building proprietary AI‑driven platforms that replace legacy workflows with modern, scalable systems, and are gaining meaningful traction with enterprise healthcare clients across North America. This is a foundational engineering role at a company where your work will directly shape the product and the platform it runs on.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable Python services and REST and GraphQL APIs that power the core product
• Define and evolve a resilient backend architecture capable of growing with increasing customer demand and product complexity
• Own database schema design, data modeling, and query performance tuning across both relational and graph data systems, including knowledge graph services
• Implement observability across the stack through logging, metrics, and distributed tracing, and maintain operational runbooks to support reliability at scale
• Partner with frontend, data, and product teams to define API contracts and shared deliverables
• Secure the platform through authentication and authorization controls, secrets management, rate limiting, and data protection practices
• Mentor engineers on backend best practices and contribute to raising the overall quality bar across the engineering team

Requirements

• Extensive production experience building backend systems in Python
• Hands‑on experience with knowledge graphs and graph data stores such as Neo4j, Neptune, or ArangoDB, including schema and ontology design and query optimization
• Strong SQL skills and familiarity with ORMs such as SQLAlchemy or Django ORM
• Experience designing APIs and distributed systems with reliability and performance as first‑order concerns
• Solid understanding of cloud infrastructure on AWS, GCP, or Azure, along with containers and infrastructure as code
• Experience with observability stacks including tools like OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Grafana
• Ability to decompose ambiguous problems, communicate tradeoffs clearly, and drive projects to completion end‑to‑end
• Experience with agentic workflows, RAG systems, event‑driven architectures, or security and compliance practices such as SOC2 is considered a strong asset

Benefits

• Competitive senior engineering salary in the range of $120,000 to $140,000 CAD depending on experience, along with early‑stage equity that carries real upside as the company scales
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision coverage
• Remote‑first setup with flexible working hours
• Professional development budget
• The opportunity to own backend architecture at a company where AI is meaningfully improving how patients experience care, with systems that will directly support healthcare organizations serving tens of thousands of patients across North America

Application Process

• Submit your application, including your resume and cover letter, through our online portal. Our team will carefully review your qualifications and experiences. We take pride in responding promptly, so if your application aligns with our current opportunities, you’ll hear back from us with next steps.
• Vetting Call – A 30‑45 minute informal conversation designed to get to know you better and assess your skills. Be prepared to discuss your past projects, the challenges you’ve tackled, and the impact you’ve made.
• Profile Creation – Once you’ve impressed us in the vetting call, we’ll create an unbiased profile that highlights your experience while minimizing common biases.
• Client Submission – After crafting your unbiased profile, we submit it to our trusted clients. Throughout their interview process, we remain by your side, providing support and guidance to help you navigate the hiring process smoothly and confidently.