💻 Software Engineer, Backend (Staff)

About Us

Alpha is a product studio focused on the intersection of AI and consumer social – backed by a16z and many of the top investors in the world. Our goal is to create social products that we use, that our friends use, and that have the potential to reach billions of people. 

Clubhouse was our first app, and we’ve been quietly growing that while building our next set of products. We have years of runway, millions of users, and find ourselves at a very interesting time, where AI is making entirely new things possible with voice.

If you are a talented builder who’s interested in joining us, we’d love to talk.

The Role

We’re hiring a Staff Backend Engineer for our Foundations team. This is a high-leverage technical role focused on scaling the reliability, performance, and architectural maturity of our systems. You’ll help shape how backend engineering is done at Alpha by not only by delivering critical systems, but also by mentoring others, codifying patterns, and raising the bar for technical ownership.

You’ll partner closely with founders, product, infra, and client teams to make sure our backend systems scale with product ambition, balancing speed, quality, cost efficiency and stability in a fast-moving environment.

We are a remote friendly-company — with our headquarters in San Francisco and a strong commitment to ensuring people can do great work here and thrive without having to live near an office. This role is open to candidates across the U.S.

• Technically deep and systems-minded. You’ve led the design and implementation of complex backend systems with long-term performance, reliability, or cost implications. You can see around corners and help teams make architectural choices that stand the test of time.
• A mentor and multiplier. You get energy from enabling more junior engineers to succeed. You provide thoughtful code reviews, unblock others, and model how to navigate ambiguity. You teach patterns, not just fixes.
• Comfortable in ambiguity. You don’t just tolerate undefined problems - you use them as a design space. You know how to bring clarity without slowing teams down.
• Cross-functional collaborator. You partner well with PMs, designers, and data scientists, ensuring technical decisions balance speed, reliability, and product impact. You communicate tradeoffs clearly and calmly.
• Low ego, high impact. You raise the bar for backend engineering through thoughtful leadership and strong execution, without needing to be the loudest voice in the room.

• Shape systems at scale. Lead design and implementation of backend systems across APIs, data pipelines, infra, and service boundaries, solving real technical challenges beyond feature delivery.
• Enable and mentor others. Invest in the growth of more junior engineers by reviewing architecture, pairing, and teaching patterns that increase long-term team velocity.
• Evolve engineering practices. Help mature service ownership, improve system design processes, and drive long-term backend quality through documentation, modeling, and systematization.
• Deliver measurable outcomes. Drive projects that reduce infra costs, improve incident response, or re-architect brittle systems—ensuring backend engineering scales with product growth.

What you can expect 

As a member of our team, you can choose to work in person – at our beautiful, creative HQ in San Francisco – or fully remote. You can expect competitive base pay (currently $260,000 - $290,000 for this role), meaningful ownership in the company, great benefits, and constant advancement opportunities.

More importantly, we will invest deeply in your development and work every day to ensure it is the best professional experience of your life.

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Our company is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or make any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [email protected].