Backend Engineer

OpenAI Inc.
United States
1 day ago
Apply on www.builtincolorado.com
Prepare application

Role details

Contract type
Permanent contract
Employment type
Full-time (> 32 hours)
Experience level
Expert
Experience required
8 years minimum
Working hours
Regular working hours

Tech stack

Artificial Intelligence Cloud Computing Code Review Cursor (Graphical User Interface Elements) Software Debugging Mobile Application Software Python (Programming Language) PostgreSQL Data Logging ReactJS

Job description

We’re looking for a Backend Engineer to design, build, ship, and own end-to-end product features used by thousands of developers and hundreds of millions of end-users., * Meet frequently with your team and mentor to get up to speed.

  • Set up and get familiar with repositories, task management, and the dev environment.
  • Implement and ship your first project.
  • Get familiar with RevenueCat’s dashboards, logging, debugging tools, cloud providers, infrastructure, and general architecture.
  • Learn about the mobile app economy and subscription-business concepts that shape our product decisions.

Within the first 3 months, you’ll

  • Scope and work on projects self-sufficiently, end to end.
  • Talk to customers or support directly to understand how the systems you own actually get used and where they break down.
  • Learn the basics of incident response and join the on-call rotation.
  • Participate in code reviews and contribute to reliability and quality across the codebase.
  • Understand every product your team owns.

Within the first 6 months, you’ll

  • Review code, write proposals, and contribute to architectural discussions.
  • Contribute to your team’s roadmap and technical direction - the “why,” not just the “how.”
  • Be the go-to person on a couple of your team’s focus areas.
  • Have shipped a major product or feature, start to finish.

Within the first 12 months, you’ll

  • Know all the major components of our system and be able to debug complex issues across it.
  • Have your own initiatives for improving our products, grounded in real customer and business priorities.
  • Spec and architect medium-to-large projects, gather feedback, and drive design validation and rollout plans.
  • Mentor other engineers joining the team.
  • Push the org to improve reliability, scalability, and performance.

Requirements

This is a hands-on IC role. We want someone that loves shipping products, not just code. You are an engineer obsessed with the customer and passionate about software. You’ll take ownership from problem scoping to production rollout to long-term maintenance. You have both the engineering fundamentals to write performant systems that operate at huge scale near flawlessly and the product sense that doesn’t let “perfect” get in the way of “shipped today.”, * You have 8+ years of experience as a backend engineer designing complex, fast-growing systems that didn’t exist before you.

  • You can write advanced SQL statements beyond basic SELECT and UPDATE statements.
  • You hold a high bar for quality and instinctively know which details matter, but also are discerning enough to cut scope when needed while still delivering value.
  • You’re customer-obsessed: you imagine yourself as the developer, product manager, or marketer using the feature or experiencing the issue.
  • You’re a builder, not an implementer: scoping, prioritizing, and driving rollout in partnership with our Product team. This isn’t a role where you check off items from a detailed specification.
  • You can quickly familiarize yourself with code you didn’t write yourself and improve it.
  • You’re comfortable coding alongside AI tools like Copilot, Cursor, or Claude Code. You use them to move faster on the parts that don’t need your full attention, and you’re detail-oriented enough to catch when they’re wrong.
  • You’re scrappy and biased toward shipping. You’d rather ship a good version today and iterate than wait to ship a perfect one next quarter.
  • You communicate clearly, both in real-time and asynchronously. We’re a fully remote team, and how you write is as important as how you code.
  • You’ve shipped meaningful user-facing features to production, monitored their usage and adoption, and improved them over time.
  • You write high-quality, well-tested code, debug issues methodically, and help raise the engineering bar through thoughtful feedback and mentorship.
  • You act like a founder: you notice problems, propose improvements, and follow through fast.

Ideally, you have:

  • Experience in Python.
  • Experience in PostgreSQL.
  • Experience building SDKs.
  • Shipped a mobile app with in-app purchases.
  • Some experience with React and SPA applications.

Benefits & conditions

Design, build, ship, and own backend product features used by developers and mobile app users at large scale. Scope projects, write reliable and tested code, monitor production systems, participate in architecture and roadmap decisions, respond to incidents, improve scalability and performance, communicate remotely, and mentor engineers. The role requires end-to-end ownership from problem definition through rollout and long-term maintenance. The summary above was generated by AI, * Competitive equity in a fast-growing, Series C startup backed by top-tier investors, including Y Combinator

  • 10-year window to exercise vested equity options
  • A fully remote environment designed around autonomy and flexibility.
  • 4-5 weeks of flexible time off annually
  • Paid desk at a co-working space
  • Workspace budget and continuous learning stipend

About the company

RevenueCat gives app businesses the infrastructure and tools to build, run, and improve their monetization. Since graduating from YC’s S18 batch, we’ve grown into the default monetization platform for mobile.

We’re in 50%+ of newly shipped subscription apps, we process $16B+ in annual purchase volume, and we help everyone from a solo developer to the OpenAI mobile team understand and grow their revenue.

We’re a remote-first team of 150+ people across 25+ countries, guided by values we actually practice: Customer Obsession, Always Be Shipping, Own It, and Balance.

This isn’t the right fit for everyone. The systems you’ll build here manage billions of dollars and touch hundreds of millions of end users, and we don’t take that lightly. You’ll be expected to work hard and hold a high bar for what you ship, alongside some of the sharpest, most driven people you’ve worked with. If that sounds energizing rather than exhausting, keep reading.

Apply for this position

This job is hosted externally. Click below to view the full posting and apply.

Apply on www.builtincolorado.com
Prepare application

Good distractions

Talks and stories from around this role — technically off-topic, practically not.

2:14 min

Exploring internal AI product initiatives and global engineering roles

Maria Apazoglou ¡ Coffee With Developers

1:21 min

Exploring the target application for front end tests

Anna Mcdougall ¡ JS Congress

5:37 min

Extensibility and programmability features of the PostgreSQL database

Silvano Coriani Silvano Coriani ¡ Europe 2026 Virtual

3:39 min

Addressing code review surrender and process exploitation

Laura Tacho Laura Tacho ¡ World Congress 2026 Europe

2:18 min

Redefining developer roles and software architecture requirements

Laurie Voss Laurie Voss ¡ Coffee With Developers

2:59 min

Introduction and transitioning into the tech industry

Anna Mcdougall ¡ JS Congress

Videos

See all

Related articles

See all