Staff Backend Engineer

Sift Stack, Inc.; El Segundo (CA); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity options

Comprehensive health benefits

Job summary

A cutting-edge technology company in El Segundo, CA is seeking experienced engineers to focus on innovative data infrastructure. In this role, you'll design scalable platforms for high-frequency sensor data processing and develop efficient database solutions. Ideal candidates hold a Bachelor's degree in a STEM field and possess over seven years in backend or data engineering roles. The company encourages local candidates and offers a competitive salary package ranging from $200K to $250K, along with equity and benefits. A remote option for qualified candidates from San Francisco is available.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in backend, infrastructure, or data engineering roles.
• Proficiency with relational and time-series databases.
• Familiarity with DevOps and cloud infrastructure tools.

Responsibilities

• Design and build a scalable platform for ingesting hardware sensor data.
• Develop efficient database solutions for real-time analytics.
• Collaborate on architecture and design strategies.

Skills

Backend development

Infrastructure engineering

Data engineering

Event-time-based stream processing

Database efficiency

Collaborative problem-solving

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or a STEM discipline

Tools

Apache Flink

Kafka

PostgreSQL

Kubernetes

Terraform

Go

Python

Job description

At Sift, we’re redefining how modern machines are built, tested, and operated. Our platform gives engineers real-time observability over high-frequency telemetry—eliminating bottlenecks and enabling faster, more reliable development.

Sift was born from our work at SpaceX on Dragon, Falcon, Starlink, and Starship—where scaling telemetry, debugging flight systems, and ensuring mission reliability demanded new infrastructure. Founded by a team from SpaceX, Google, and Palantir, Sift is built for mission-critical systems where precision and scalability are non-negotiable.

As an early engineer focused on our data infrastructure, you won’t just write code—you’ll define core architecture and help scale a real-time telemetry platform from the ground up. You’ll work on complex backend systems designed to ingest, store, and serve millions of high-frequency data points per second, enabling faster iteration cycles for some of the most advanced engineering teams in the world.

In This Role, You'll:

• Design and build a horizontally scalable platform for ingesting millions of hardware sensor data points per second

• Develop durable, efficient database solutions to support real-time reads and large-scale analytics workloads

• Pioneer data architecture by integrating recent innovations in streaming and storage, including cloud-native and diskless designs

• Help define engineering culture, standards, and processes

• Collaborate closely with peers on architecture, design, code reviews, and scaling strategies
  

The Skillset You'll Bring:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or another STEM discipline

• 7+ years of experience in backend, infrastructure, or data engineering roles

• Hands‑on experience with event‑time‑based stream processing or streaming SQL systems using tools like Apache Flink, Kafka Streams, Beam, or similar

• Proficiency with relational and time‑series databases like PostgreSQL, Druid, Pinot, TimescaleDB, or equivalent

• Experience with large‑scale distributed systems or low‑latency backend services, ideally written in Go, Rust, or Python

• Familiarity with DevOps and cloud infrastructure tools such as Kubernetes, Prometheus, ArgoCD, and Terraform

• Strong communication skills and a collaborative approach to problem-solving
  

Bonus Points:

• Familiarity with telemetry data from hardware systems, high‑throughput ingest pipelines, or columnar storage formats like Apache Arrow and Parquet

• Experience building resilient, performant systems that scale to billions of records

• Curiosity about new data paradigms and eagerness to evaluate and integrate emerging tools and techniques
  

Engineering at Sift:

You’ll join a tight‑knit team of world‑class engineers building foundational systems for next‑gen machines. Technologies you’ll work with may include:

• Frontend & Backend: Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Protobuf, React, TypeScript

• Data Infrastructure: Apache Arrow, DataFusion, Flink, Kafka, Parquet, Rust

• Ops & Tooling: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, GitHub Actions, Prometheus, Argo CD, Grafana, Linux
  

Location:

Sift’s headquarters is in El Segundo, CA. We collaborate in person twice a week—on Mondays and Thursdays—and come together for a full week every two months. While we prefer team members to be local, we’re open to relocating candidates to LA or considering remote work from the San Francisco area for the right candidate.

Salary range: $200,000 - $250,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.

Eligibility:

U.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.