Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform

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

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid work model

Equity plans

Healthcare

Learning stipend

Parental leave

401k matching

Job summary

Patreon is seeking a Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform, to design and drive scalable backend systems and infrastructure. Based in San Francisco or New York, you will lead architecture and mentor engineers in a hybrid, in-office 3 days/week model.

You will partner with product teams to ensure platform capabilities align with business needs, and help evolve reliability, performance, and maintainability across services and tooling.

Qualifications

• Significant experience building large-scale backend systems with distributed architectures.
• Strong background in high-throughput, low-latency APIs for millions of DAUs.
• Experience with relational databases, caching, and storage technologies.
• Strong data modeling and storage system understanding; familiarity with queues and event-driven design.
• Proven ability to optimize performance across APIs, databases, and caches.
• Operational excellence mindset including incident response and production debugging.
• Experience operating cloud-native environments (AWS) and Kubernetes-based infra.
• Proficiency in Python, Go, Java, or Rust for backend services.
• Ability to communicate architectural trade-offs clearly in writing and meetings.
• Experience mentoring seniors and contributing to engineering culture.

Responsibilities

• Design and drive technical solutions for key systems within Patreon's backend platform.
• Lead architecture and implementation of scalable distributed systems and APIs.
• Contribute to modernization of backend architecture and data access patterns.
• Establish technical standards for reliability, performance, and maintainability.
• Partner with product teams to align platform capabilities with business needs.
• Drive technical decisions and collaborate cross-functionally on projects.
• Evolve operational maturity around incident management and production excellence.
• Mentor Senior and mid-level engineers through design reviews and hands-on guidance.

Skills

Distributed systems

High-throughput APIs

Low-latency architectures

Databases & caching

Data modeling

Performance optimization

Incident response

Cloud-native (AWS/Kubernetes)

Backend languages (Python/Go/Java/Rust

Architectural decision-making

Tools

MySQL

Postgres

Redis

DynamoDB

AWS

Kubernetes

Job description

Patreon is a media and community platform where over 300,000 creators give their biggest fans access to exclusive work and experiences. We offer creators a variety of ways to engage with their fans and build a lasting business including: paid memberships, free memberships, community chats, live video, and selling to fans directly with one-time purchases.

Ultimately our goal is simple: fund the creative class. And we're leaders in that space, with:

• $10 billion+ generated by creators since Patreon's inception
• 100 million+ free memberships for fans who may not be ready to pay just yet, and
• 25 million+ paid memberships on Patreon today.

We're continuing to invest heavily in building the best creator platform with the best team in the creator economy and are looking for a Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform to support our mission.

This role can be based in San Francisco or New York and open to those who are able to be in-office 3 days per week on a hybrid work model.

About The Team

The Backend Platform team builds the foundational systems and infrastructure that power Patreon's creator platform. We're responsible for the core backend services, APIs, databases, infrastructure, and developer tooling that enable product teams across the company to ship quickly, reliably, and at scale. This team is growing and investing in foundational platform capabilities that will support Patreon's next phase of scale and product expansion.

About The Role

• 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

What You'll Need

• 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

We hire talented and passionate people from different backgrounds because workplace diversity and inclusion is critical to our ability to serve creators worldwide. If you're excited about a role but your past experience doesn't match with every bullet point outlined above, we strongly encourage you to apply anyway. If you're a creator at heart, are energized by our mission, and share our company values, we'd love to hear from you.

About Patreon

Patreon powers creators to do what they love and get paid by the people who love what they do. Our team is passionate about making this mission and our core values come to life every day in our work. Through this work, our Patronauts:

• Put Creators First | They're the reason we're here. When creators win, we win.
• Build with Craft | We sign our name to every deliverable, just like the creators we serve.
• Make it Happen | We don't quit. We learn and deliver.
• Win Together | We grow as individuals. We win as a team.

Patreon is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected class. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the interview process, please let us know via email at accommodations@patreon.

Patreon offers a competitive benefits package including and not limited to salary, equity plans, healthcare, flexible time off, company holidays and recharge days, commuter benefits, lifestyle stipends, learning and development stipends, patronage, parental leave, and 401k plan with matching.

Patreon operates under a hybrid work model, where employees based in office locations are expected to come into the office two days per week, excluding sick time and paid leave. The goal of this policy is to be intentional about the in-person time we spend together to strengthen the feeling of community at Patreon. Candidates hired into remote-eligible roles are not expected to meet the same requirements.

At Patreon, we believe in fair and transparent pay. In compliance with New York and California pay transparency laws, we are sharing the expected salary range for this role.

The posted salary range is dependent on the location and the level. This range may encompass multiple levels within the role's job family. The final offer will be based on candidate's experience, skills, competencies, and geographic location, aligning with the appropriate job level within Patreon leveling framework. For remote employees located outside CA and NY, salary may vary based on location and local market conditions.

Patreon reserves the right to modify or update compensation and benefits at any time.