Staff Backend Software Engineer

ProducePay; Sunnyvale (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Carbon is seeking a senior backend engineer to own the services behind the fleet, designing resilient systems that manage printer identity, connectivity, provisioning, updates, and telemetry as our fleet scales. You will build the Linux layer under printers, design cloud-to-device protocols and failure modes, and lead end-to-end initiatives across printer and cloud platforms.

The role requires deep Linux, networking, and backend language skills, plus a production mindset and strong mentorship

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience building and operating production backend services.
• Deep Linux fundamentals: processes, filesystems, networking, systemd, boot and init, package management, users and permissions.
• Strong networking skills: TCP/IP, TLS, DNS, HTTP, WebSockets, NAT and firewall traversal.
• Hands-on OS provisioning and lifecycle: installing, imaging, updating, and rolling back Linux systems.
• Expert-level proficiency in at least one modern backend language (Python, Go, Node/TypeScript, C++, or similar).
• Production mindset: considering failure modes, observability, upgrade paths, and pager experience.
• Strong communication, debugging, and problem-solving skills.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Responsibilities

• Own the Services Behind the Fleet: be a core owner of backend services that manage printer identity, connectivity, provisioning, updates, and telemetry.
• Build the Linux Layer Underneath: design and improve how printers come up, install, and update from bring-up through in-field OS updates and rollbacks.
• Own the Network Between Cloud and Printer: design protocols and connections to keep printers talking to our cloud reliably.
• Drive Major Initiatives End-to-End: take ownership of backend initiatives from design through production rollout on real printers.
• Own Reliability Alongside the Team: participate in on-call, drive incident response and postmortems, and fix recurring pain.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: translate product and operational needs into robust designs and mentor engineers.

Skills

Backend design

Linux fundamentals

Networking

OS provisioning

Python

Go

Node/TypeScript

C++

System design

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

Bazel

MQTT

Job description

At Carbon, our mission goes beyond 3D printing. We are enabling creators everywhere to make what the world needs, right now. Our company is built on the idea that diverse fields of study must come together to solve intractable problems. We have grand ambitions to create technology that will influence industry around the world. You will be joining a diverse team with a vibrant culture, where team success is as important as celebrating individual contributions.

Help us change the world and we will help you change yours.

Working at the intersection of hardware, software, and molecular science, Carbon delivers on the promise of 3D printing by helping commercial customers move beyond prototyping to produce real-world parts. Every one of those parts depends on a printer in a customer's factory staying online, up to date, and in perfect two-way conversation with our cloud.

You will:

• Own the Services Behind the Fleet: Be a core owner of the backend services that manage printer identity, connectivity, provisioning, updates, and telemetry. You will keep them resilient and highly available as our fleet grows, and drive the design of new services that unlock new device capabilities.
• Build the Linux Layer Underneath: Design and improve how our printers come up, install, and update, from initial bring-up through in-field OS updates and rollbacks. You will bring deep Linux fundamentals to bear on real problems in the field, where "reinstall the machine" is not an option.
• Own the Network Between Cloud and Printer: Design the protocols, connections, and failure modes that keep a printer talking to our cloud reliably from anywhere in the world, including flaky networks, restrictive corporate firewalls, and long offline periods. You will care about latency, back-pressure, retries, and the boring reliability details that make the whole system feel solid.
• Drive Major Initiatives End-to-End: Take full ownership of substantial backend initiatives, from design through production rollout on real printers. You will influence architectural decisions and help shape the long-term direction of the cloud-to-device platform.
• Own Reliability Alongside the Team: Participate in on-call for the services you own, drive incident response and postmortems, and turn recurring pain into permanent fixes. You will help other teams operate the services that depend on yours.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Work as a senior technical contributor across backend, infrastructure, and device teams. You will translate real product and operational needs into robust designs, raise the bar through design and code review, and mentor engineers around you.

You have:

• 8+ years of experience building and operating production backend services, with a track record of driving major initiatives end to end.
• Deep Linux fundamentals: processes, filesystems, networking, systemd, boot and init, package management, users and permissions, and the ability to debug production Linux problems from first principles.
• Strong networking skills: TCP/IP, TLS, DNS, HTTP, WebSockets, NAT and firewall traversal, and comfort reasoning about connectivity between services in the cloud and devices on customer networks.
• Hands-on experience with OS provisioning and lifecycle: installing, imaging, updating, and rolling back Linux systems in the field, including A/B update strategies or similar patterns.
• Expert-level proficiency in at least one modern backend language (Python, Go, Node/TypeScript, C++, or similar), and comfort dropping into others when needed.
• A production mindset: you think about failure modes, blast radius, observability, and upgrade paths from the start, and you have carried a pager for systems you built.
• Strong communication, debugging, and problem-solving skills.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Nice to have:

• Experience building IoT or connected-device backends at scale.
• Hands-on experience with MQTT or similar pub/sub protocols in production, including broker operations, QoS trade-offs, and offline/reconnect semantics.
• Experience with fleet management, remote diagnostics, or OTA update systems.
• Familiarity with edge compute, embedded Linux distributions, or bring-up of new hardware.
• Familiarity with Bazel or another polyglot monorepo build system.

You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Carbon, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful,

and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a