Staff Backend Engineer, Licensing

horizon3ai; United States; Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Health, vision, and dental coverage

Flexible vacation

Parental leave

Job summary

horizon3ai is seeking a hands-on technical leader to guide backend services that manage product packaging, customer entitlements, and usage enforcement. You will shape reliable models and scalable workflows that work across direct and partner accounts, and lead complex cross-service initiatives with hands-on implementation.

You will mentor engineers, set architectural direction, ensure data correctness, observability, and production support, and align product and engineering on requirements and

Qualifications

• Eight or more years of software engineering experience, with substantial backend service and API work.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related computing field or equivalent practical experience.
• Track record of setting architecture or technical direction for complex, production-critical systems.
• Strong experience with SQL, data modeling, distributed systems, and service reliability.
• Deep experience building and operating backend services in Python, Go, Java, or TypeScript.
• Ability to influence across teams, mentor engineers, and balance correctness, scalability, maintainability, and delivery needs.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for services representing purchases, packages, enabled capabilities, entitlements, and usage limits.
• Design workflows that apply licensing and access rules consistently across direct and partner account models.
• Lead cross-service initiatives, contributing directly to implementation.
• Establish practices for data correctness, safe migrations, API evolution, observability, and production support.
• Align Product and engineering partners on requirements, integration points, and customer-impacting tradeoffs.
• Mentor engineers through design and code reviews, pairing, and clear technical documentation; resolve difficult production issues and reduce repeat incidents.

Skills

Backend leadership

Distributed systems

SQL

Mentoring engineers

API design

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent in computing

Tools

Python

Go

Java

TypeScript

Job description

Role overview

Provide hands-on technical leadership for backend services that manage product packaging, customer entitlements, and usage enforcement. Shape reliable models and workflows that scale across direct and partner accounts, while leading complex initiatives spanning services and remaining involved in implementation and operations.

Responsibilities

• Set technical direction for services representing purchases, packages, enabled capabilities, entitlements, and usage limits.
• Design workflows that apply licensing and access rules consistently across direct and partner account models.
• Lead cross-service initiatives, contributing directly to implementation.
• Establish practices for data correctness, safe migrations, API evolution, observability, and production support.
• Align Product and engineering partners on requirements, integration points, and customer-impacting tradeoffs.
• Mentor engineers through design and code reviews, pairing, and clear technical documentation; resolve difficult production issues and reduce repeat incidents.

Requirements

• At least eight years of software engineering experience, including substantial backend service and API work.
• Bachelor’s degree in a related computing field or equivalent practical experience.
• Track record of setting architecture or technical direction for complex, production-critical systems.
• Strong experience with SQL, data modeling, distributed systems, and service reliability.
• Deep experience building and operating backend services in a modern language such as Python, Go, Java, or TypeScript.
• Ability to influence across teams, mentor engineers, and balance correctness, scalability, maintainability, and delivery needs.

Benefits and work setup

• Remote and hybrid arrangements vary by role and location; some positions require regular office attendance.
• Full-time roles include stock options. Benefits include health, vision, and dental coverage, flexible vacation, and parental leave.