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Software Engineer, Backend

Mercor· Engineering
Apply on company site
San Francisco$200k - $500kFull-timePosted 3mo ago

About the role

Mercor is hiring a hands-on technical leader to own and evolve the shared backend architecture powering talent network products (talent matching, assessment, expert workflows). The role focuses on defining long-term backend strategy, scalable systems, and cross-team migrations, while remaining hands-on and mentoring senior engineers.

Responsibilities

  • Own the architecture of Mercor's shared backend systems—core services, data models, APIs, and cross-product infrastructure.
  • Define and drive the long-term technical strategy for backend architecture across the organization.
  • Design systems for scale, reliability, and evolvability, and lead the highest-stakes technical decisions and design reviews.
  • Identify and pay down architectural debt that slows product teams, and lead complex cross-team migrations.
  • Establish backend engineering standards, patterns, and best practices adopted across all product teams.
  • Stay hands-on: prototype critical systems, ship production code, and unblock teams on their hardest technical problems.
  • Mentor senior engineers and raise the technical bar across the engineering organization.
  • Partner with engineering and product leadership on build-vs-buy decisions, platform investments, and technical hiring.

Qualifications

  • 8+ years of professional backend engineering experience, including 3+ years operating at a Senior level or above.
  • Deep expertise in distributed systems, service architecture, data modeling, and API design at scale.
  • A track record of owning architecture across multiple teams or an entire organization—and of decisions that aged well.
  • Experience leading large, complex technical migrations in production without stopping the business.
  • Strong opinions, loosely held: you drive alignment through technical judgment and clear writing, not authority.
  • Fluent in using modern AI development tools (e.g. Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, or similar) to improve engineering productivity.
  • Experience mentoring senior engineers and raising the technical bar across an organization.
  • Excellent communication skills—able to make complex tradeoffs legible to both engineers and leadership.
  • High ownership, pragmatism, and a bias toward shipping.

Skills

Required:Backend architectureDistributed systemsTechnical leadership

Benefits

  • Bi-annual performance bonus structure
  • Generous equity grant vested over 4 years
  • Up to $15k Relocation bonus
  • $10K housing bonus (if you live within 0.5 miles of our office)
  • $1.5K monthly stipend for meals
  • Free Equinox membership
  • $200 monthly laundry reimbursement
  • $200 monthly personal wellness reimbursement
  • Health, Dental, Vision insurance
Last updated Jul 29, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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