Staff Software Engineer, Backend
About Onebrief
Onebrief is collaboration and AI-powered workflow software designed specifically for military staffs. By transforming this work, Onebrief makes the staff as a whole superhuman - meaning faster, smarter, and more efficient.
We take ownership, seek excellence, and play to win with the seriousness and camaraderie of an Olympic team. Onebrief operates as an all-remote company, though many of our employees work alongside our customers at military commands around the world.
Founded in 2019 by a group of experienced planners, today, Onebrief’s team spans veterans from all forces and global organizations, and technologists from leading-edge software companies. We’ve raised $320m+ from top-tier investors, including Battery Ventures, General Catalyst, Sapphire Ventures, Insight Partners, and Human Capital, and today, Onebrief is valued at $2.15B. With this continued growth, Onebrief is able to make an impact where it matters most.
About the role
We’re hiring a Staff Backend Engineer to help design, build, and operate the core systems of our platform. This is a hands-on engineering role with a focus on performance, reliability, and operational excellence. Our backend is built on modern languages, frameworks, and cloud-native infrastructure. We value strong problem-solving skills and sound engineering judgment over mastery of any one technology.
You’ll work on high-impact systems including (but not limited to) our core backend services, database, monitoring, and metrics pipelines. Expect to tackle challenges in scaling, performance, data modeling, fault tolerance, observability, and disaster recovery. You’ll help shape architecture and contribute to operational and long term strategy.
If you enjoy thinking about trade-offs, working across the stack, and solving problems that keep production systems healthy under real-world conditions, you’ll thrive here.
What you'll do
Design, build, and maintain backend services that power mission critical platform functions
Evolve and optimize the underlying data model to improve scalability, performance, and reusability
Work across the stack — from APIs and databases to deployment and observability
Diagnose and resolve performance, scalability, and reliability issues in production
Collaborate on architecture and operational strategy for high-availability systems
Implement and refine monitoring, alerting, and metrics collection
Balance long-term engineering quality with pragmatic delivery
What we look for
12+ years of experience in backend software development
B.S. in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
Proficiency in one or more backend languages (e.g., Node.js, Python, Java, Go, etc.)
Deep understanding of designing and building scalable APIs (REST, GraphQL, gRPC)
Strong experience with relational and/or non-relational databases, data modeling, and query optimization
Demonstrated ability to design, implement, and maintain distributed systems
Strong knowledge of application performance tuning, reliability, and security best practices
Hands-on experience with containerization and cloud infrastructure (Docker, Kubernetes, AWS/GCP/Azure)
Proven ability to collaborate across functions (product, design, frontend, DevOps) to deliver end-to-end solutions
Excellent communication skills and ability to clearly articulate technical tradeoffs
Experience mentoring and coaching other engineers; proven ability to elevate team technical standards through code reviews, design discussions, and knowledge sharing
Track record of ownership and delivering complex projects in a fast-paced environment
Preferred Qualifications
Background in mission-critical domains
Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and deployment workflows
Prior experience driving architecture and system design decisions for complex, high-scale applications
Knowledge of event-driven and service-oriented architectures (Kafka, Pub/Sub, microservices)
Familiarity with observability stacks (logging, metrics, tracing) and incident response practices
Experience with data sharding and logical data partitioning strategies
Experience with message queues, streaming platforms, or event buses
Experience working with security/compliance requirements (e.g., SOC2, FedRAMP, HIPAA)
Notice to Third Party Recruitment Agencies
Please note that Onebrief does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruiters or employment agencies. In the absence of an executed Recruitment Services Agreement, there will be no obligation to any referral compensation or recruiter fee. In the event a recruiter or agency submits a resume or candidate without an agreement Onebrief explicitly reserves the right to pursue and hire those candidate(s) without any financial obligation to the recruiter or agency. Any unsolicited resumes, including those submitted to hiring managers, shall be deemed the property of Onebrief.