Staff Software Engineer

DISCO; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 170,000 - 240,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Open, inclusive environment

Medical, dental and vision insurance

401(k)

Flexible PTO

RSUs and competitive salary

Growth opportunities

Job summary

DISCO is seeking a Staff Software Engineer (Backend) to lead large-scale backend initiatives in a cloud environment. You will mentor engineers, influence architectural decisions, and own system design and performance improvements across multiple teams.

You will work on microservices, containerization, and cloud deployments, ensuring robust security and high availability while collaborating with product, design, and frontend teams to meet business goals.

Qualifications

• 10+ years backend engineering with SaaS or cloud‑based applications.
• Experience leading significant software projects and high‑availability systems.
• Proficiency in microservices, containers, and cloud provider platforms.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship across teams.
• Design, implement, and optimize scalable backend systems.
• Drive performance, security, and reliability in production services.
• Collaborate with product, design, and frontend teams to align architecture with business goals.

Skills

Backend engineering

Microservices architecture

Docker/Kubernetes

Cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Java/Kotlin

Python

C#

REST/gRPC

CI/CD

Observability

Security engineering

Leadership

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or equivalent

Tools

Elasticsearch

Cassandra

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Job description

Your Impact

The Staff Software Engineer (Backend) is an experienced engineer who leads large-scale projects and are key contributors to their group's success. They are involved in long‑term strategic planning, mentor senior engineers, and are influential in technical decision-making across multiple teams or a department. They focus on implementation and system design, as well as maintaining and evolving solutions.

Your Impact

The Staff Software Engineer (Backend) is an experienced engineer who leads large-scale projects and are key contributors to their group's success. They are involved in long‑term strategic planning, mentor senior engineers, and are influential in technical decision-making across multiple teams or a department. They focus on implementation and system design, as well as maintaining and evolving solutions.

What You'll Do

• Technical Leadership and Mentorship: Provides technical leadership in project teams, guiding engineers, and contributing to technical decision-making. Quality Architects for System Design for sub‑systems that they know / own. Sets technical direction for large projects or teams, driving innovation, and solving organization‑wide problems
• Performance Optimization: Focuses on designing systems for high performance, scalability, and reliability
• Ownership: Proactively identifies areas of products and systems that currently have problems or will develop problems as well as a plan to address those problems
• Stakeholder Engagement: Works with stakeholders, including product managers, designers, developers, and executives, to align architectural designs with business needs and customer expectations
• Software Development: Designs, develops, and maintains sophisticated software solutions, ensuring they are efficient, scalable, and meet business requirements with architectural excellence. Responsible for the boundary identification, system design and grooming for one or more sub‑systems
• Code Quality and Optimization: Upholds and enhances code quality through rigorous review processes, optimization techniques, and adherence to best practices
• Technical Problem Solving: Tackles complex technical challenges, employing a problem‑solving approach with innovative solutions
• Collaboration and Communication: Works effectively within the engineering team and cross‑functional teams, collaborating with other engineers, product managers, and stakeholders, contributing to project planning and execution
• Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Stays updated with the latest technology trends and advancements, continually enhancing skills and knowledge, bringing innovative ideas to the team
• Technical Documentation: Creates and maintains comprehensive technical documentation, ensuring clarity and accessibility of information

Who You Are

• 10+ years of relevant experience in backend engineering, with a substantial focus on SaaS or cloud‑based applications
• Demonstrated experience in leading or playing key roles in significant software projects, showing an ability to work effectively both independently and as part of a team
• Experience with and involvement in developing, monitoring and maintaining large‑scale, high‑availability software systems
• Experience designing and developing from a Security Perspective
• Knowledge of microservices architecture principles, including decentralized data management, service discovery, and bounded contexts. Mastery in microservices technology stack, ability to optimize performance, and ensure security and scalability across the system.
• Proficiency in containerization technologies such as Docker and orchestration tools like Kubernetes. Experience in creating, deploying, and managing containers is essential
• Strategic level interaction with UI Developers. Works to ensure backend systems can support future UI/UX initiatives and performance requirements.
• Knowledge of system architecture, design patterns, and best practices in software development.
• Skilled with designing and operating software in a Cloud Provider, such as AWS, Azure, or GCP
• Expertise with both relational and non‑relational data stores, Elasticsearch, Cassandra, MySQL, PostgreSQL.
• Skilled in analytical abilities and problem‑solving, capable of addressing complex technical challenges.
• Ability to adapt to new technologies and methodologies, and a mindset geared towards innovation and continuous improvement.
• Skilled in programming languages and frameworks commonly used in SaaS development. In particular, Java/Kotlin, Python, C#, as well as a deep understanding of software engineering principles. Proven ability to deliver well‑crafted, tested, and maintainable code solutions to complex technical challenges.
• Familiarity with server management, network configurations, and an understanding of cloud services (like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud).
• Knowledge of various stages of the SDLC, including design, development, testing, and deployment.

Even Better If You Have…

• Experience selecting and extending 3rd party components (commercial or open source) that provide operational leverage
• Experience with Agile development methodologies and practices
• Experience using feature or release toggles as a code branching strategy
• Experience leveraging observability systems (logging, metrics, traces) to monitor and debug production subsystems and generate business level metrics
• Experience in implementing RESTful APIs for outward‑facing services and using gRPC for efficient internal service‑to‑service communication
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and tools (like Jenkins, GitLab CI, or CircleCI) for automated testing and deployment of microservices

Authorization to Work in the U.S.

Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future. DISCO is not currently sponsoring visas, including, but not limited to, H-1B, TN, or EAD, and we are not accepting visa transfers.

Perks of DISCO

• Open, inclusive, and fun environment
• Benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, as well as 401(k)
• Competitive salary plus RSUs
• Flexible PTO
• Opportunity to be a part of a company that is revolutionizing the legal industry
• Growth opportunities throughout the company

About DISCO

DISCO provides a cloud‑native, artificial intelligence‑powered legal solution that simplifies ediscovery, legal document review and case management for enterprises, law firms, legal services providers and governments. Our scalable, integrated solution enables legal departments to easily collect, process and review enterprise data that is relevant or potentially relevant to legal matters.

At DISCO, we believe AI is a core enabler of how work gets done. All employees are expected to proactively adopt and responsibly use AI tools to drive efficiency, improve outcomes, and continuously evolve how they operate in their role.

Are you ready to help us fulfill our mission to use technology to strengthen the rule of law? Join us!

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.