Staff Backend Engineer

Sift; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 200,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Comprehensive benefits

Flexible work arrangements

Job summary

A leading tech company in San Francisco is looking for an experienced backend engineer to design and build systems for real-time telemetry data. You will be responsible for end-to-end features, optimizing performance and scalability of backend systems. Candidates should have a Bachelor’s degree in a STEM field and at least 7 years of experience, particularly in distributed systems and SQL. Competitive salary between $200,000 - $250,000 per year, plus equity and benefits.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in backend or infrastructure roles.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals.
• Deep knowledge of SQL and operational database experience.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate backend systems for real-time telemetry data.
• Own features end-to-end, ensuring they solve real customer problems.
• Optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and reliability.

Skills

Backend or infrastructure experience

Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals

Experience with Go, Rust, or Python

Deep knowledge of SQL

Debugging skills

Education

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

Tools

Kubernetes

Prometheus

gRPC

PostgreSQL

Job description

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

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, build, and operate backend systems that process and store large volumes of real-time telemetry data.
• Own features end-to-end, from design to post-launch improvement.
• Collaborate with Frontend, Design, and Data teams to ensure features solve real customer problems.
• Optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Contribute to system evolution—migrating services, introducing caches, and improving storage or indexing layers.
• Participate in on-call rotations, debugging live issues, and improving observability.
• Raise the bar through code reviews, shared patterns, and mentorship.

The Skillset You’ll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or another STEM discipline
• 7+ years of experience in backend or infrastructure roles.
• Strong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals—state, fault tolerance, recovery.
• Experience with Go, Rust, or Python, and strong Linux/networking fundamentals.
• Deep knowledge of SQL and operational database experience (indexing, migrations, tuning).
• Experience building and scaling APIs (REST, gRPC/Protobuf).
• Strong debugging skills and a production-first mindset.

Familiarity with Kubernetes, Prometheus, Argo CD, and other modern infrastructure tools.

Bonus Points

• Experience with streaming or time-series data systems (Kafka, Flink, TimescaleDB, etc.).
• Experience with performance tuning and profiling at query or service layers.
• Familiarity with observability tools (Datadog, Grafana).
• Background in hardware or telemetry-heavy environments.

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 Marina del Rey, 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.