Staff Engineer, Backend

5 days ago

Palo Alto, California, United States Athena Full time

About Athena 

At Athena, we empower possibility through transformative delegation. True leaders reflect on what they want and map the path to get there. We clear the way by pairing exceptional Executive Assistants with our driven clients and ensuring both receive ongoing support throughout the journey. The result is 10x more leverage, more time, and a greater impact on our clients' work and lives.

We are on a mission to build the best delegation platform in the world. We believe that the Human+AI combination will provide a superior experience to delegate complex tasks by combining the strengths of highly trained assistants leveraging highly trained AI. 

Role Overview

The role will be a key engineering lead at Athena, responsible for driving key systems design decisions on the Athena tech stack. This role demands a deep technical background, excellent architectural skills, and the ability to provide guidance and leadership in the backend development space.

Responsibilities

  • Systems Design Leadership: Lead the design and architecture of robust, scalable, and efficient backend systems that support both internal operations and customer-facing applications.

  • Technical Strategy and Vision: Contribute to the overall technical strategy and vision of Athena, ensuring backend technologies align with business goals and offer a competitive edge.

  • Code Quality and Standards: Establish and enforce coding standards and best practices to ensure the development of high-quality, maintainable code.

  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with frontend engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders to ensure cohesive and comprehensive system design.

  • Mentorship and Guidance: Provide technical mentorship and guidance to junior and mid-level engineers, fostering technical excellence and career growth within the team.

  • Performance Optimization: Analyze and optimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and reliability.

  • Technology Evaluation: Stay abreast of emerging backend technologies and frameworks that could enhance system capabilities or improve development workflows.

Qualifications

  • Experience: 10+ years of backend development experience, with a proven track record of leading system design initiatives for complex applications.

  • Technical Expertise: Extensive knowledge of backend programming languages and experience with database design for both SQL and NoSQL databases.

  • Systems Architecture: Demonstrated experience in architecting scalable and resilient systems, with a deep understanding of microservices, APIs, and distributed systems design.

  • Leadership: Strong leadership skills with the ability to guide and influence technical direction and decision-making processes.

  • Communication: Excellent communication skills, with an ability to articulate complex technical concepts to a variety of audiences.

  • Problem-Solving: A strong problem-solving mindset with a focus on delivering solutions that drive business value.

  • Collaboration: Proven ability to work effectively in a collaborative, cross-functional team environment.

  • Education: A bachelor's or master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field is preferred.

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