Staff Backend Software Engineer

Sense; United States; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental &amp

Vision

401k/IRA

Life Insurance

Paid Time Off

Family Leave

Disability - Short & Long Term

Training & Development

Work From Home

Free Food & Snacks

Wellness Resources

Stock Option Plan

Job summary

Sense, a climate-tech company in Cambridge, MA, seeks a Staff Backend Engineer to expand our cloud platform, scale production services, and own backend features end-to-end.

You will collaborate with cross-functional teams, design robust REST APIs, and ensure security and reliability for high-volume data systems. Remote-friendly with a hybrid office in Central Square, Cambridge.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Degree in a relevant field.
• Authorized to work in the US.

Responsibilities

• Own backend features from design to deployment and bug fixes.
• Design clean, scalable REST APIs and integrate with partner systems.
• Scale and maintain high-availability production services.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including product and engineering managers.
• Mentor and lead teammates to follow engineering best practices.

Skills

Java

Linux

AWS

REST APIs

DevOps & SRE

Security & Data Privacy

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Cassandra

MySQL

Kafka

Python

Job description

Staff Backend Software EngineerAbout Sense

Check out and join our energetic team at Sense! We’re a VC-backed, post-Series C climate tech company entering our next stage of growth. We’re located in Central Square, Cambridge and are passionate about our mission! This is a great opportunity to work with a team of experienced entrepreneurs creating technology that will really make a difference in the world. Our mission is to reduce global carbon emissions by making homes smart and efficient, and we’re looking to make an impact at scale: Sense’s technology has the potential to prevent one gigaton of carbon from entering the atmosphere every year.

We’re looking for talented self-starters who want to be part of the energy transformation and are ready, willing, and able to tackle tough challenges and complex technical problems. When you join the Sense team, you’re helping us build a cleaner, more resilient future.

Sense supports a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace and is an equal-opportunity employer. We strive to foster an engaging, respectful, and supportive community where everyone feels empowered to do their best work.

Role Overview

As a Staff Backend Engineer at Sense, you’ll use your expertise to expand the capabilities of our cloud platform and enable the next generation of new product features. You will be a key contributor and leader maintaining and scaling a high-quality production service. You should be:

• Focused on delivering functionality that benefits the customer and provides real value
• Able to partner effectively with a cross‑functional team of engineers, product managers, and engineering managers across multiple disciplines.
• Ready to work with embedded engineers to develop systems that integrate with various hardware platforms.
• Comfortable working closely with partners and customers to ensure success
• Excited about high-volume, realtime data and solving the challenges it poses.
• Interested in building high‑availability, performant, and scalable systems.
• Tenacious when tracking down production issues, digging into metrics and logs as needed to solve problems.
• Ready to own team projects from design and implementation to testing, deployment, and bug fixing. Complete day‑to‑day work autonomously and identify gaps in requirements or processes, proactively suggesting improvements.
• Familiar and comfortable with AI coding practices
• A strong leader and outspoken advocate for engineering best practices and team collaboration.

Work Model

This position is ideally a hybrid work model, but fully remote candidates will be considered. Our office is in Cambridge, MA and we have a mix of in‑person, hybrid and remote employees.

The ideal candidate will have experience with the following:

• 8+ years of professional experience with a degree in a relevant field and proven track record in professional software engineering
• Mastery of Java, Linux, and AWS
• Experienced at designing clean, usable REST APIs and integrating with partner systems
• Strong understanding of how to apply security and data privacy principles within your specific engineering domain
• DevOps and SRE experience maintaining a production environment
• Cassandra, MySQL, Kafka, and Python experience is a plus
• Energy industry or climate tech experience is a plus
• Authorized to work in the US
• Compensation is 180 - 200k
• Health Care Plan (Medical, Dental & Vision)
• Retirement Plan (401k, IRA)
• Life Insurance (Basic, Voluntary & AD&D)
• Paid Time Off (Vacation, Sick & Public Holidays)
• Family Leave (Maternity, Paternity)
• Short Term & Long Term Disability
• Training & Development
• Work From Home
• Free Food & Snacks
• Wellness Resources
• Stock Option Plan