Staff Backend Engineer - Real-Time AI Platforms

pika

United States

Hybrid

USD 180,000 - 260,000

Full time

14 days+
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Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary
Equity
Health benefits
Hybrid in-office culture

Job summary

Pika in Palo Alto, CA, hybrid in-office, is seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Backend, to lead and scale our backend infrastructure powering real-time collaboration and AI-driven workflows. You will own the design and delivery of robust APIs and systems that support millions of users across our products.

Work with product, design, and engineering to deliver reliable, secure, and performant services. You’ll help shape the technical foundation, mentor engineers, and drive architectural decisions

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of backend software engineering experience.
  • 2+ years in senior backend roles.
  • Experience with distributed systems and real-time APIs.
  • Proven ability to lead complex backend projects.

Responsibilities

  • Architect and develop scalable backend systems and APIs.
  • Build distributed systems and cloud infrastructure (AWS/GCP).
  • Own backend features from ideation to launch.
  • Support low-latency real-time collaboration at scale.
  • Design backend features for AI-driven capabilities.
  • Mentor engineers and drive architectural standards.

Skills

Backend development
Distributed systems
RESTful APIs
Real-time APIs
Cloud infrastructure
System design
Technical leadership
Cross-functional communication

Tools

AWS
GCP
Kubernetes
PostgreSQL
Redis
Docker

Job description

Pika in Palo Alto, CA, hybrid in-office, is seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Backend, to lead and scale our backend infrastructure powering real-time collaboration and AI-driven workflows. You will own the design and delivery of robust APIs and systems that support millions of users across our products.

Work with product, design, and engineering to deliver reliable, secure, and performant services. You’ll help shape the technical foundation, mentor engineers, and drive architectural decisions

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