Staff Backend Engineer — Government Tech, Secure & Scalable

Robinhood; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation package

Equity ownership

401(k) matching

100% paid health insurance

Lifestyle wallet

Job summary

Robinhood in New York, NY is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to lead the technical design of a brand-new, secure, scalable backend architecture for a high-visibility government contract.

You will build robust data pipelines and APIs, mentor engineers, and partner with Product, Security, Legal, and external partners to deliver a compliant, high-performance platform. This role emphasizes distributed systems and API design for millions of users.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience with principal or staff-level leadership.
• Proficiency in Python or Go for high-throughput systems.
• Expertise in domain modeling, microservices, and reliable APIs.
• Experience in zero-to-one product space, navigating ambiguity and blocking issues.
• Experience as primary technical contact and mentoring senior engineers.
• Excellent collaboration with Product, Security, Compliance, and external partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design, architecture, and implementation of a brand-new, standalone backend infrastructure optimized for security, reliability, and scale.
• Design secure data pipelines and robust APIs to integrate government-backed registries, employer contribution frameworks, and institutional banking systems.
• Guide engineering teams across Robinhood's brokerage ecosystem, setting high code standards and mentoring engineers.
• Partner with Product, Security, Legal, and external stakeholders to meet regulatory protections and compliance requirements.
• Own backend stability and performance ahead of initial high-volume user rollouts and launch.

Skills

Principal/Staff Engineer

Python

Go

Distributed systems

APIs

Microservices

Domain modeling

Zero-to-one product

Technical leadership

Tools

Backend tooling

Data pipelines

Job description

Robinhood in New York, NY is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer to lead the technical design of a brand-new, secure, scalable backend architecture for a high-visibility government contract.

You will build robust data pipelines and APIs, mentor engineers, and partner with Product, Security, Legal, and external partners to deliver a compliant, high-performance platform. This role emphasizes distributed systems and API design for millions of users.