Staff Backend Engineer - Real-Time AI Platforms

pika; United States; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

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