Senior/Staff Backend Engineer

San Francisco, CA · On-site (5 days/week) · Full-time
Compensation: $180K–$260K + equity

About the Company

Our client is a fast-growing, VC-backed startup building the agentic automation layer for a large, traditionally low-tech corner of the insurance industry. They replace manual, paper-based agency operations with reliable automation built on top of messy real-world systems. Momentum is strong, with rapid year-over-year revenue growth and a fresh funding round closing soon.

Founded 2021 · Small, senior team · Industry: Insurance, AI, Fintech

The Role

You would own the design and implementation of end-to-end automated workflows for insurance operations: connecting to disparate, low-tech systems, building dependable automation on top of them, and iterating directly with customers. This is foundational, backend-heavy work with real ownership from day one and no product-manager layer between you and the problem.

What you'll be doing

• Design and ship end-to-end agentic workflows that automate real insurance operations such as collections, renewals, and carrier integrations
• Integrate with numerous disparate, often low-tech systems and build reliable, high-quality interactions on top of them
• Work directly with customers to gather feedback, iterate, and translate technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders
• Contribute greenfield engineering on top of an existing browser-automation layer
• Solve complex system-design problems collaboratively in a high-stakes domain

Tech stack: TypeScript, Node.js, modern AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot), browser automation

Requirements

• 5-15 years of backend software engineering experience, with meaningful time at a startup
• Recent experience (within the last 4 years) at an early-stage, VC-backed startup, ideally as a founding engineer, early IC, or core team member
• Strong proficiency in a modern backend language, TypeScript preferred
• Active daily use of modern AI coding tools
• A proven track record of building and shipping production backend systems
• Genuine curiosity and a real interest in talking directly with customers
• A clear, articulable desire to work at an early-stage startup
• Able to work on-site 5 days a week in San Francisco

Nice to Haves

• Background in insurance, finance, or healthcare
• Experience with browser automation, web scraping, or creative data extraction

Why Join

• Build the automation layer for a massive industry that is still largely on paper
• Greenfield, zero-to-one backend work with end-to-end ownership and no PM layer
• Small, senior team reporting directly to the founder, with founding-engineer level scope
• Strong traction and a funding round closing soon; relocation support available

Details

• Location: San Francisco, CA
• Work policy: On-site, 5 days/week (core hours 10am-5pm, with flexibility)
• Compensation: $180K–$260K + equity
• Visa sponsorship: Open to candidates who need a visa transfer
• Employment type: Full-time