Senior Staff Software Engineer

SearchLabs; New York (NY); On-site; USD 240,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

SearchLabs in New York is seeking Senior to Staff Software Engineers to own significant product and engineering problems end to end. You will build backend systems, APIs, and data models for complex workflows, making architecture decisions focused on performance, reliability, and maintainability.

You are a polyglot engineer who can ramp into unfamiliar tech and collaborate across backend and frontend. Join a venture-backed team delivering production systems with real ownership and impact.

Qualifications

• Senior or Staff level with a track record shipping production systems.
• Strong backend and full-stack capabilities; ownership across layers.
• Polyglot engineer able to ramp into unfamiliar tech and codebases.

Responsibilities

• Own significant product and engineering problems end to end.
• Build backend systems, APIs, data models, and product functionality for complex workflows.
• Make architecture decisions around performance, reliability, maintainability.
• Collaborate across backend and frontend when needed.
• Turn messy business requirements into scalable software.
• Review designs, mentor engineers, and raise the technical bar.

Skills

Backend engineering

Full-stack

System design

Mentoring

Polyglot engineering

Job description

Are you a Senior to Staff Software Engineer who likes owning systems and products end to end?

Have you built complex production software where architecture, data, reliability, and product decisions all matter?

Do you want to work on problems where you’re expected to figure out the right technical approach - not just implement a spec?

We’re working with a venture-backed technology company building software for a complex, data-heavy industry. They’re looking for strong backend and full-stack engineers who can take ambiguous problems, make good technical decisions, and ship production systems with real ownership.

What You’ll Do

• Own significant product and engineering problems end to end, from technical design through production.
• Build backend systems, APIs, data models, and product functionality supporting complex workflows.
• Make architecture decisions around performance, reliability, maintainability, and system design.
• Work across backend and frontend when the problem calls for it.
• Take messy business requirements and turn them into clean, scalable software.
• Review designs, mentor engineers, and help raise the technical bar across the team.

You Are

• A strong Senior or Staff-level engineer with a track record of shipping meaningful production systems.
• Strong in backend or full-stack engineering and comfortable owning more than one layer of the application.
• A polyglot engineer who can ramp quickly into unfamiliar technologies and codebases.
• Comfortable making technical trade-offs without needing every requirement defined upfront.
• Product-minded and interested in understanding the problem behind what you’re building.
• Experienced working on complex, data-heavy, or operationally demanding software.

Why This Role

• End-to-End Ownership – design it, build it, ship it, and keep improving it.
• Real Technical Scope – architecture, backend systems, data, APIs, product behavior, and reliability.
• Room to Make Decisions – strong engineers are expected to have opinions and use judgment.
• Compensation – up to $280K USD base + equity (DOE).