Staff Backend Software Engineer (Navigation)

ALSO • Palo Alto, CA

92d • $220,000 - $250,000

About The Position

At Also, we’re reimagining how people move through the world—starting with the ride itself. This role is a rare opportunity to lead the development of our end-to-end navigation experience from the ground up. As one of our earliest engineering hires, you’ll shape the cloud, mobile, and on vehicle architecture that powers intelligent, vehicle-specific routing and real-time, on-vehicle navigation that doesn’t exist in the market today. You’ll collaborate closely with experts in firmware and mobile to bring a modern, thoughtful navigation solution to life. This is a greenfield opportunity: no legacy systems, no entrenched technical debt—just the chance to architect a clean, scalable system using best-in-class tools. You’ll work in a fast-moving, high-ownership environment where decisions you make today will shape the product and user experience for years to come.

Requirements

• Strong backend engineering experience in a production-grade environment, ideally using Golang and AWS.
• Proven ability to architect and ship complex systems in a fast-moving startup or 0→1 product environment.
• Deep understanding of real-time or near real-time system design—especially in latency-sensitive use cases.
• Extensive experience with mapping and navigation platforms and integration (e.g., Google Maps APIs, Mapbox, HERE, TomTom).
• Excellent technical judgment and a system design mindset that balances robustness, performance, and maintainability.
• Comfort working cross-functionally with firmware, mobile, and product stakeholders.
• Strong communication and documentation skills.

Nice To Haves

• Familiarity with BLE, GPS, and/or hardware-software interfaces.

Responsibilities

• Own the implementation of our flagship navigation experience, from routing to rendering.
• Integrate with external mapping/navigation APIs to power route planning, turn-by-turn directions, and rich map metadata.
• Collaborate with firmware, mobile, and product teams to define the navigation system interface between bike hardware, the mobile app, and cloud services.
• Design robust, low-latency APIs and cloud systems that handle location, routing logic, vehicle-specific optimizations, and data synchronization.
• Enable critical edge cases like offline fallback, route recalculation, device reconnects, and display rendering on constrained hardware.
• Work alongside the firmware engineer to define BLE protocols and vector graphic rendering constraints for the bike’s microcontroller-powered display.
• Shape our engineering culture and development practices through documentation, mentoring, and hands-on leadership.

Benefits

• Robust health coverage.
• Excellent health, dental and vision insurance covered up to 100% by ALSO with FSA & HSA options.
• One Medical membership and dedicated insurance advocates.
• Rich fertility and family building benefits with Progyny.
• Flexible time off.
• 401(k) match.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 51-100 employees