Software Engineer - Application Platform

Figma; San Francisco (NY, CA); Remote; USD 149,000 - 350,000; Full time

Job summary

Join a forward-thinking company as a Software Engineer on the Application Platform team. You'll develop core backend systems that empower product teams to innovate and collaborate effectively. This role emphasizes building scalable distributed systems and optimizing workflows to enhance product delivery. Ideal candidates will have a passion for mentoring and a strong foundation in various programming languages. Embrace the opportunity to grow within a dynamic engineering community that values creativity and collaboration. If you're ready to make a significant impact in the design and collaboration space, this position is perfect for you.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of experience in building and scaling distributed systems.
• Strong coding skills in Go, TypeScript, Python, or Ruby.

Responsibilities

• Create abstractions for product engineering teams to enable faster shipping.
• Build and optimize foundational infrastructure for common use cases.

Skills

Distributed Systems

APIs

Go

TypeScript

Python

Ruby

System Design

Technical Communication

Job description

Software Engineer - Application Platform

Figma is growing our team of passionate people on a mission to make design accessible to all. Born on the Web, Figma helps entire product teams brainstorm, design, and build better products — from start to finish. Whether it’s consolidating tools, simplifying workflows, or collaborating across teams and time zones, Figma makes the design process faster, more efficient, and fun while keeping everyone on the same page. From great products to long-lasting companies, we believe that nothing great is made alone—come make with us!

The Application Platform team is responsible for Figma’s core backend platform. This team develops the application primitives used by backend engineers across the company, including our data access frameworks, asynchronous jobs platform, developer tools, and more. Application Platform also stewards the core architecture of our backend codebase, with an emphasis on scaling development velocity to our fast-growing engineering team, by defining best practices used across the company and enabling teams to decouple their product verticals from each other.

We are looking for experienced engineers to join the team and enable Figma to create more world-class design and collaboration products! Ideal candidates will have experience working in large-scale, shared backend codebases and implementing scalable patterns. They’ve implemented and maintained robust & reliable distributed systems that form the backbone of core product functionality. Most importantly, they love building for builders.

This is a full-time role that can be held from one of our US hubs or remotely in the continental United States.

What you'll do at Figma:

• Create abstractions for product engineering teams that reduce friction and enable shipping new products faster.
• Build and optimize foundational infrastructure for common use cases such as running experiments and engaging users.
• Evangelize best practices throughout the engineering team to keep code quality high.
• Partner with engineering leadership to set strategy and priorities for the team and its projects.
• Establish trust within and across teams by creating accountability and a positive work environment in partnership with others in the organization.
• Grow your career in an engaged and creative engineering community.

We’d love to hear from you if you have:

• 6+ years overall experience building and scaling distributed systems and online services through the introduction of APIs and frameworks to a large code base.
• Strong technical communication skills, and demonstrated ability to build and leverage relationships with engineering and technical leaders.
• Strong coding skills with demonstrated proficiency in programming languages including Go, TypeScript, Python, Ruby, or similar.
• Strong system design skills, ideally with experience in building online production services.
• A systematic and thorough approach to problem solving, thinking from first principles with a bias for taking actions and having impact.
• An interest in mentorship, learning from others, and digging into new challenges.

While it’s not required, it’s an added plus if you also have:

• Experience and lessons learned from transforming a company’s distributed systems from monolithic software development to a federated approach.
• Experience with Ruby, and even better if it is experience with Rails.

At Figma, one of our values is Grow as you go. We believe in hiring smart, curious people who are excited to learn and develop their skills. If you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with the points outlined in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyways. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.

Pay Transparency Disclosure

If based in Figma’s San Francisco or New York hub offices, this role has the annual base salary range stated below.

Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience, potential impact, and scope of role), market demands, and specific work location. The listed range is a guideline, and the range for this role may be modified. For roles that are available to be filled remotely, the pay range is localized according to employee work location by a factor of between 80% and 100% of range. Please discuss your specific work location with your recruiter for more information.

Annual Base Salary Range (SF/NY Hub):

$149,000 - $350,000 USD

At Figma we celebrate and support our differences. We know employing a team rich in diverse thoughts, experiences, and opinions allows our employees, our product and our community to flourish. Figma is an equal opportunity workplace - we are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity/expression, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

We will work to ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to apply for a role, participate in the interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. If you require accommodation, please reach out to [e-mail].

By applying for this job, the candidate acknowledges and agrees that any personal data contained in their application or supporting materials will be processed in accordance with Figma's Candidate Privacy Notice.

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