Software Engineer - Backend

Manifold Industries • San Francisco, CA

3d

About The Position

Manifold builds software for people making strategic decisions on behalf of the United States. The company aims to improve decision-making with tools that sharpen the judgment of decision-makers. Manifold is seeking a Software Engineer to build the core architecture and foundational systems powering its software.

The role owns application infrastructure that enables the product to operate as secure, reliable, production-grade software, including authentication, authorization, data storage, APIs, application services, and systems for rapidly building and deploying new capabilities. This is an early, high-ownership position working closely with the founding engineering team to turn a rapidly evolving prototype into a scalable production application used by government decision-makers. The engineer will independently design, build, and ship major systems while helping shape the product’s technical architecture.

Requirements

• Strong software engineering fundamentals, with deep experience building backend services, APIs, and database-backed applications.
• Experience designing, implementing, testing, and deploying production software used by real customers.
• Ability to independently own complex engineering projects from technical design through production deployment.
• Strong systems design skills and ability to evaluate architectural tradeoffs across scalability, performance, security, and maintainability.
• Demonstrated initiative, sound technical judgment, and ability to execute in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
• Must be a U.S.-based U.S. citizen.

Nice To Haves

• Security clearance.
• Experience building a production, user-facing application from the ground up, ideally as an early engineer at a startup.
• Experience designing and implementing foundational application systems, including authentication, authorization, data persistence, and API integrations.
• Experience making significant architectural decisions and owning major backend systems end-to-end.
• Experience designing extensible application architectures that support multiple products, workflows, or customers.
• Experience working on small, high-ownership engineering teams with rapidly evolving product requirements.
• Experience with Python, FastAPI, PostgreSQL, Neo4j, or Next.js.
• Experience with multi-tenant applications, fine-grained access controls, or complex data permissioning.
• Experience with frontend development using React, TypeScript, or similar technologies.
• Experience building software for government, defense, or other security-sensitive environments.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement authentication, role-based access control, data storage, permissioning, API integrations, and shared services that power the software.
• Make technical decisions about service boundaries, data models, APIs, and system design to support an evolving product and multiple customer deployments.
• Own foundational capabilities from loosely defined requirements through technical design, implementation, testing, and production deployment.
• Build automated tests, define clear API contracts, and develop maintainable systems that enable the team to ship quickly without sacrificing correctness.
• Build reusable components, interfaces, and services that help engineers rapidly develop applications and customer-specific workflows without compromising the core platform.
• Collaborate with the Founding Engineer on domain-specific capabilities, Forward Deployed Engineers on customer requirements, and Platform Engineers on production deployment and infrastructure.

Benefits

• 401(k) with matching.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents.
• Unlimited PTO.
• Health and wellness stipend.
• Lunch stipend three times per week and dinner stipend after 8 p.m.
• Company-wide break during the last two weeks of the year.
• Supportive leave of absence, including time off for military service, medical events, and parental leave.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed