Staff Software Developer

BackerKit•San Francisco / Remote, CA

2d•Remote

About The Position

BackerKit is hiring a full-time Staff-level, hands-on fullstack product engineer focused on user experience, interaction design, and frontend craftsmanship within its Ruby on Rails monolith. The role reports to the Director of Engineering, Product, and Design and leads primarily through code, review, and shipped work. The engineer will work directly in Rails views to simplify complex workflows and turn interconnected systems into intuitive, fast, clear, and approachable experiences. They will shape frontend patterns, mentor engineers, raise the quality bar, and influence how the Engineering, Product & Design team approaches user experience. The position is high-context, collaborative, and impactful. The engineer will build with engineers, product managers, and designers through pairing, trios, and solo work; co-own features end to end; and follow up on usage after launch. They will also join the engineering leadership group to advise on priorities and technical direction. BackerKit is a remote-first team of approximately 40 people, and this role works shared hours of 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Pacific. The company iterates quickly, practices TDD, works in one-week iterations, and ships multiple times a day. Pairing remains central, with the team also exploring solo and cross-functional trio work alongside AI tools. The application is a Ruby on Rails monolith deployed on Heroku, with a codebase dating to 2012 that the company describes as well-factored and well-tested. On-call and other team rotations are part of the role; no off-hours or weekend work is required beyond on-call shifts.

Requirements

Deep experience building high-quality user interfaces and recent hands-on coding experience.
Strong fundamentals in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and browser behavior.
Comfort working directly in Rails views, helpers, and partials.
Experience with or strong interest in Hotwire, Turbo, and Stimulus.
Strong product and interaction design instincts.
Ability to simplify complex workflows and work effectively with ambiguity.
Experience shaping engineering patterns and conventions.
Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Ability to act as a go-to partner for complex or ambiguous frontend and UX challenges.
Ability to think at architecture and business-system levels while remaining comfortable doing detailed implementation work.
Comfort making a case on priorities and committing once a decision is made.
Curiosity about how pairing and team practices can evolve in an AI-enabled environment.
Most successful candidates have 10+ years of software development experience across multiple complex projects and 5+ years as a staff engineer; the company states there is no strict years-of-experience requirement.

Nice To Haves

Bonus: experience working in a 100% pairing environment.
Deep knowledge of Ruby, Rails, and JavaScript.

Responsibilities

Build alongside engineers, product managers, and designers in pairs, trios, and solo, working on impactful product features.
Lead frontend architecture and evolve patterns incrementally based on real, repeated cases.
Co-own features end to end by translating product and design intent into elegant, maintainable user interfaces and following up on usage after launch.
Simplify complex workflows and improve usability, responsiveness, and performance.
Mentor engineers and set the bar for code quality through review, including holding AI-generated code to a high standard.
Advise on priorities and help shape technical direction as a member of the engineering leadership group.
Participate in team rotations, including on-call, pull request review, and meeting host.
Work shared team hours and respond to creators, backers, and colleagues as needed.