Staff Backend Platform Architect

Patreon; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity plans

Healthcare

Flexible time off

Parental leave

Job summary

Patreon seeks a Senior Backend Platform Engineer to design and drive technical solutions for our backend infrastructure. You will lead architecture of scalable distributed systems, APIs, and platform services, while modernizing service boundaries and data access patterns across the team.

You will mentor engineers, uphold standards for reliability and performance, and partner with product teams to ensure platform capabilities meet business needs.

Qualifications

• Significant experience building large-scale backend systems, with depth in distributed systems and platform architecture (typically 6-8+ years, or equivalent demonstrated expertise)
• Strong expertise in distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, and low-latency architectures that support millions of DAUs
• Experience with databases, caching systems, and storage technologies (e.g. MySQL, Postgres, Redis, DynamoDB)
• Strong understanding of data modeling, storage systems, caching, queues, and event-driven architectures
• Experience in performance optimization across APIs, databases, caching layers, and distributed services
• Strong operational excellence mindset, including incident response and production debugging
• Experience operating systems in cloud-native environments such as AWS and Kubernetes-based infrastructure
• Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Java, or Rust
• Ability to communicate architectural trade-offs clearly in writing and in cross-functional forums
• Experience mentoring Senior and mid-level engineers and contributing to engineering culture through design reviews, documentation, or team standards

Responsibilities

• Design and drive technical solutions for key systems within Patreon's backend platform and foundational infrastructure
• Lead architecture and implementation of scalable distributed systems, APIs, event-driven systems, and platform services
• Contribute to and lead modernization efforts across backend architecture, service boundaries, data access patterns, and infrastructure
• Help establish and uphold technical standards and best practices around reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability
• Partner with product engineering teams to ensure platform capabilities align with business and product needs
• Drive technical decision-making for your team's projects, partnering cross-functionally as needed
• Help evolve operational maturity around incident management, resiliency, and production excellence
• Mentor Senior and mid-level engineers through design reviews, technical guidance, and hands-on collaboration

Skills

Distributed systems

High-throughput APIs

Low-latency architectures

Python

Go

Java

Rust

AWS

Kubernetes

Databases

Tools

MySQL

Postgres

Redis

DynamoDB

Job description

Patreon seeks a Senior Backend Platform Engineer to design and drive technical solutions for our backend infrastructure. You will lead architecture of scalable distributed systems, APIs, and platform services, while modernizing service boundaries and data access patterns across the team.

You will mentor engineers, uphold standards for reliability and performance, and partner with product teams to ensure platform capabilities meet business needs.