Staff Software Developer (copy)

BackerKit•San Francisco, CA

3d•$184,000 - $235,000•Remote

About The Position

BackerKit is hiring a full-time, Staff-level engineer for a hands-on, full-stack product engineering role focused on user experience, interaction design, and frontend craftsmanship within a Ruby on Rails monolith. The role reports to the Director of Engineering, Product, and Design. The Staff Software Developer will spend most of the week working on the team’s queue, primarily in Rails views, simplifying complex workflows and turning interconnected systems into fast, clear, approachable user experiences. The position leads frontend architecture by evolving patterns incrementally, co-owns features end to end, and helps shape how the Engineering, Product & Design team approaches user experience. The engineer leads through code, review, and delivery; mentors teammates; and contributes to engineering leadership discussions about priorities and technical direction. BackerKit is a remote-first company with approximately 40 employees, and this role works shared team hours of 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Pacific. The team uses Ruby on Rails, TDD, one-week iterations, and frequent releases, and is experimenting with pairing, solo work, cross-functional trios, and AI-assisted development. The codebase is a well-tested Rails monolith deployed on Heroku. The company values simplicity, maintainability, communication, shared ownership, customer focus, and a sustainable pace. Team rotations include on-call, PR review, and meeting host; 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.
Strong product and interaction design instincts.
Experience simplifying complex workflows and ability to work effectively with ambiguity.
Experience shaping engineering patterns and conventions.
Strong communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.
Ability to serve as a go-to partner for complex or ambiguous frontend and UX challenges.
Ability to think at the architecture and business-systems level while remaining comfortable with detailed implementation work.
Comfort making a case for priorities and committing to decisions once they are made.
Ability and willingness to work shared team hours, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. Pacific.

Nice To Haves

Experience with or strong interest in Hotwire, Turbo, and Stimulus.
Interest in exploring pairing in an AI-enabled work environment; experience in a fully pairing-based environment is a bonus.
Deep knowledge of Ruby, Rails, and JavaScript.
Most successful candidates have 10+ years of software development experience across multiple complex projects and 5+ years as a staff engineer, though there is no strict years-of-experience requirement.

Responsibilities

Build impactful product features alongside engineers, product managers, and designers through pairing, trio, and solo work.
Lead frontend architecture and evolve patterns incrementally based on recurring real-world cases.
Co-own features end to end, translating product and design intent into elegant, maintainable UI and following up on usage after launch.
Simplify complex workflows and improve usability, responsiveness, and performance.
Mentor engineers and set a high bar for code quality through review, including reviewing AI-generated code.
Join the engineering leadership group to advise on priorities and shape technical direction.
Participate in team rotations, including on-call, PR review, and meeting host.