Staff Backend Platform Engineer
Conversica is seeking a Staff Backend Platform Engineer to set the technical direction for the production backend systems that power our next-generation AI platform. This is a senior individual contributor role with platform-wide scope, focused on the architecture and engineering standards that make our agentic AI possible: integrations, data ingestion, messaging infrastructure, orchestration, and the data foundations our agents depend on.
This role operates with a high degree of autonomy and technical authority. You will shape platform architecture across multiple teams, set engineering standards that the broader backend organization adopts, and drive the long-term technical direction of our backend systems.
What You'll Do
- Set the technical direction for Conversica 's backend platform, owning architecture decisions that span integrations, data, messaging, and orchestration across the entire system
- Drive cross-functional initiatives that touch multiple engineering teams, partnering with AI Engineering, Product, and Integrations leadership to shape platform strategy and roadmap
- Define and evolve org-wide engineering standards for backend service design, data modeling, integration patterns, observability, and operational excellence
- Identify systemic reliability, scalability, and performance risks across the platform and lead the engineering response
- Mentor senior and mid-level engineers across the backend organization, raising the technical bar through design reviews, written technical guidance, and pairing on hard problems
- Represent the backend platform in technical strategy discussions with executive leadership and contribute to multi-quarter roadmap planning
- Build and ship production code yourself; this is a hands-on individual contributor role, not a pure architect role
What You'll Build
- Integration platform: inbound and outbound data processors, partner APIs, webhook ingestion, CSV bulk imports, sync logic, and resilient retry/backoff patterns for unreliable external systems
- Messaging infrastructure: email (AWS SES), SMS (Twilio), and chat (OpenAI Chatkit) delivery pipelines including throughput management, deliverability, suppression, and audit trails
- Platform services: the Campaign, Playbook, Flows, Contact, Knowledge, and Reporting services that compose our domain mode
- Data foundations: Postgres schema design, data models for contacts, conversations, campaigns, and configuration. Storage patterns optimized for both transactional workloads and agent retrieval
- Orchestration and event flows: FastAPI services, Celery workflows, EventBridge-driven event handling, queue management, and the action dispatch layer that executes agent decisions across CRM, calendar, and notification systems
Success in this Role
In your first 6 to 12 months in this role:
- You’ve established the integration, data, and messaging patterns that other backend engineers build against, and the platform’s engineering standards are visibly stronger because of you.
- You’ve led at least one cross-team technical initiative end to end, including the consensus-building, design, delivery, and operational handoff.
- You’ve raised the operational maturity of the platform, measurably improving reliability, performance, or developer leverage in systems other teams depend on.
Qualifications and Experience
- Equivalent of 8+ years of professional software engineering experience with significant focus on backend platform, integrations, or data infrastructure - including hands-on responsibility for systems running in production at scale.
- Track record of leading cross-team or org-wide technical initiatives from conception through production, including the soft work of building consensus and unblocking other engineers
- Proven experience deploying and operating production backend systems at scale
- Strong proficiency in Python, including production experience with FastAPI, Celery, and similar async/queue-based fram