Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer

Squad is looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to help us build a new kind of social world online. We're in the business of building habits and building friendships—your 12 closest, to be exact—instead of performing for randos on social media. We’re a startup proudly based in Brooklyn, NY, but this position is open to anyone in the United States.

Our app is live on iOS, built on Firebase and React Native, and we're actively migrating to the next generation of our tech stack: React Native still hosts our UI layer, backed by NodeJS to provide all the live updates you expect from an audio-centric, toyetic, delightful application. Backed by notable Silicon Valley VCs and featured in several press outlets, we’re really excited about the support we have to expand our impact around the world!

What you’ll do

• Report directly to the CTO. We’re still a really small company, so all Software Engineers report directly to our CTO, Schoon, who provides regular one-on-one feedback.
• Build the services that support our mobile app. Our application is live-updating and media-heavy, so expect interesting challenges and lots of pairing with the rest of the team as we tackle those challenges together.
• Invest in the team. We put real value in mentorship, and we acknowledge that everyone on our team has something to teach and something to learn. Everyone is involved in building the culture we want at Squad, from how we interview to how we grow to how we ship.
• Contribute to open source libraries and tools. We draw a lot of value from libraries contributed by others, and we contribute back where we can.

How we work

We’re a remote-first company with flexible hours, which means:

• We rely heavily on written communication. During our core hours there’s a lot of live chatter (and laughter) on Slack, trickling into documentation and asynchronous updates the rest of the time.
• We care about both the “why” and the “how”. We’re curious people trying to build something new and novel in the world, so there’s a lot of time spent discussing code, process, and design on Zoom.
• All changes go through GitHub. Everything from infrastructure changes to mobile app deployments are driven through Pull Requests and peer review.

What we’re looking for

• Production experience with JavaScript or TypeScript.
• Proficiency optimizing services to be faster, more scalable, and fault-tolerant.
• Familiarity with core NodeJS APIs (e.g. streams) and Express.
• Experience working closely with product or design teams.
• Comfort with build tools like Babel, Metro, or even Make.
• Carpenters, not plumbers: while tools and developer experience are important, the code you write will directly impact our users' social lives; their livelihood is our priority.

Bonus points

• Production experience with other programming languages and frameworks.
• Experience with Test-Driven Development and pair programming.
• Experience with Firebase offerings, particularly Firestore, Realtime Database, and Functions.
• Experience writing advanced SQL queries.
• Experience with Redis, Kafka, Docker, Terraform, or Kubernetes.
• Contributions to an active open source project.