Staff Backend Engineer

Who you are

• 10+ years of professional experience building and shipping web applications with a focus on backend development
• Proven experience with functional or imperative programming languages (e.g., PHP, Python, Java, Ruby, Go, or C). Expertise in our stack—PHP/Hack, Java, MySQL, and Linux—is a strong plus, but general familiarity with other common web languages and relational databases is a fine substitute
• Experience building search infrastructure, large-scale APIs, or AI-powered systems is highly desirable
• The ability to significantly contribute to technical architecture discussions and drive critical technical decisions across teams
• A track record of writing understandable, testable code with a strong focus on maintainability
• Solid computer science fundamentals including data structures, algorithms, programming languages, distributed systems, and information retrieval
• Strong Communication Skills: You can clearly explain complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders, including designers, support, and product managers

What the job involves

• The Slackbot team is at the forefront of a strategic initiative to make Slack the primary interface for AI-powered work — establishing Slackbot as the on-ramp to AI and the singular gateway to a company's collective knowledge. We build the intelligent search, automation, and foundational capabilities that make Slackbot delightful, trustworthy, and performant at scale
• We own quality, developer experience, and platform foundations for Slackbot: what works today keeps working tomorrow. We measure success by customer outcomes — we do whatever it takes to make Slackbot great
• We are a team of product engineers who deeply care about the user experience. We are seeking a product-driven backend engineer with strong intuition and experience who build systems and design APIs with the end user in mind
• As a Staff Backend Product Engineer, you will be instrumental in designing, building, and owning the systems and APIs that directly shape Slackbot's product experience — from intelligent search and third-party data integrations to the platform foundations that let Slackbot scale across millions of users
• You will ensure these systems are scalable, highly performant, and precisely tailored to real user needs, all while making smart trade-offs between speed, cost, and user experience
• If you are a collaborative engineer who understands that simplicity and reliability are carefully calculated aspects of system design, this is the role for you
• Conceptualize and Build: Collaborate closely with Product Managers, Designers, and other Backend/Frontend Engineers to brainstorm, conceptualize, and build new, high-impact features for Slackbot's large and rapidly growing user base
• Drive Search & Intelligence: Contribute to the systems that make Slackbot smarter about finding and surfacing the right information, across any connected source
• Deliver High-Quality Results: Contribute heavily to team projects that have a significant, measurable impact on the business and the user experience
• System Ownership: Actively own team features or core systems, defining their long-term health and roadmap while improving the health of surrounding integration systems
• Operational Excellence: Assist our skilled support and operations teams in triaging and resolving complex production issues
• Mentorship and Standards: Mentor other engineers, provide thoughtful and deep code reviews, and drive improvements in engineering standards, tooling, and processes across the team

The application process

• End Date: October 30, 2026

Benefits

• Medical Care
• Life Insurance
• Retirement Savings
• Employee Assistance Programs
• With 9 standard holidays and four floating holidays, you get a total 13 paid days off each year