Sr. Backend Software Engineer (Data/ETL)

Respondology•Boulder, CO

5d•$140,000 - $165,000•Remote

About The Position

Respondology is the leader in AI-powered social comment moderation. We are now expanding our best-in-class AI technology to enable brands to listen and respond to people in their social communities. With over 500 brands on its platform reaching 2 billion people per month, Respondology is modernizing social marketing, while eradicating hate speech from social media. #TechnologyForGood. Respondology is seeking a Backend Software Engineer with deep data engineering expertise to build and scale our ingestion pipelines and knowledge base infrastructure. This is a critical role in architecting high-throughput data systems that power Respondology’s AI-driven product suite. You'll design scrapers, API integrations, and ETL pipelines that process millions of data points daily across multiple storage systems. If you're excited about building robust data infrastructure and solving complex scalability challenges, we'd love to hear from you!

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related degree; or equivalent work experience
Minimum 5 years of professional software engineering experience
Minimum 4 years proven experience building data pipelines and ETL workflows in Python
Minimum 3 years experience with workflow orchestration tools (Airflow, Dagster, Prefect, or similar)
Minimum 3 years working with multiple data storage technologies (relational, vector, search engines)
Experience with message queues and event streaming (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS/SNS)
Proven experience building high-throughput, fault-tolerant systems (we process 100s of millions of comments per year)
Strong understanding of API design, rate limiting, and webhook handling
Experience with data quality monitoring and observability
Demonstrated ability to take ownership of projects, prioritize tasks, and deliver high-quality results independently

Nice To Haves

Experience building and/or working with RAG pipelines to provide context to cutting edge AI Agents
Significant experience with AWS data services (Kinesis, S3, RDS, Redshift, SQS/SNS)
Experience with vector databases (Pinecone, Weaviate, Qdrant) or embedding-based retrieval systems
Deep knowledge of OpenSearch/Elasticsearch for large-scale search and analytics
Experience with social media platform APIs and webhook integrations
Familiarity with modern ML/AI workflows and serving infrastructure
Experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation)
Experience with APM and data pipeline monitoring (we use DataDog)
Background in web scraping at scale with anti-bot mitigation strategies
Experience working at a rapidly-growing tech startup
FastAPI and Pydantic expertise

Responsibilities

Design and build data ingestion pipelines integrating with dozens of external sources (social platforms, third-party APIs, web scrapers)
Architect ETL workflows using Airflow and Kafka to process high-volume data streams (millions of records daily)
Collaborate with AI/ML engineers to ensure data quality and availability for Agentic RAG pipelines
Build and optimize multi-store data architecture: vector databases (Pinecone), relational databases (Postgres), and search engines (OpenSearch)
Develop and maintain integrations with social media platforms (Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok, X/Twitter) handling webhook ingestion and API polling
Optimize data freshness, throughput, and reliability across distributed systems
Participate in code reviews and contribute to backend services (FastAPI/Python, occasional Ruby on Rails)

Benefits

We have a values-led culture with team members who have your back.
Our product is making the world a better place—you will make an impact.
Everyone is an owner—equity is included for all employees.
100% remote or you may come into our beautiful offices if you’re near Boulder, CO—dogs welcome (our in-house happy hours are always fun).
Twice yearly off-sites to enjoy time together as a team.
Flex PTO plan, generous holidays and off-week between Christmas and New Years.
Multiple healthcare options, including plans with FSA and HSA
Matching traditional and Roth 401k—immediately vested
Family and paternity leave
Life Insurance