Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform

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.

Responsibilities

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

Requirements

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

Benefits

equity plans; healthcare; flexible time off; company holidays and recharge days; commuter benefits; lifestyle stipends; learning and development stipends; patronage; parental leave; 401k plan with matching