Staff Backend Engineer

Now we're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to build, optimize, and scale the APIs and systems that power our connected sleep ecosystem.

The Role: How You'll Make an Impact

Team: Backend Engineering | Reports to: Principal Backend Engineer | Location: Remote-friendly (US/Canada, PST hours)

You’ll design, build, and maintain the backend services that power Hatch’s mobile apps and IoT-enabled devices, including Java and Python REST API services, as well as monitoring, alerting, and DevOps in general.  Our systems are a complex mixture of Java-based servers, AWS IoT and Lambda interacting with our mobile apps and fleet of IoT-enabled devices. Working across Mobile, Embedded, and Product teams, you'll lead backend system design, define best practices, and mentor other engineers. This is a chance to work across a uniquely end-to-end ecosystem—from cloud APIs to physical devices in millions of homes.

As a Staff Backend Engineer, you’ll guide cross-functional technical strategy.  Once you demonstrate a mastery of our systems, you will have a lot of discretion to propose and build improvements to the overall platform.

What You'll Do

📆 First 90 Days: Learn & Contribute

• Ramp up on our backend architecture, systems, and AI-enhanced development tools
• Ship improvements to our Spring Boot + Hibernate systems
• Start contributing to architecture conversations and cross-team design
• Ship your first scoped improvement or feature used by our mobile or device teams
• Build strong working relationships with peers across Mobile, Embedded, and Product

🚀 First 6 Months: Drive Real Impact

• Thoroughly understand the end-to-end flow of the entire backend architecture and the interactions with the app and device firmware
• Propose and lead architecture or refactor projects that improve system scalability and reliability.  Drive the resolution of troubleshooting issues. 
• Own a core area like IoT device communication, registration/auth flows, device routine scheduling, or backend support for mobile app features
• Improve observability using Graphite, ELK, or other internal monitoring tools
• Mentor teammates and model pragmatic, high-quality engineering decisions
• Recent projects include building a Pydantic AI backend for our in-app agent, an ECS pipeline and Java API to surface new insights from our millions of customer devices.

✨ First Year: Transform & Scale

• Lead the design and rollout of new backend systems or large-scale refactors
• Deliver backend improvements that elevate reliability, scalability, and developer experience
• Build reusable libraries, templates, and patterns that increase engineering consistency
• Define how we incorporate AI tools into our backend workflows to drive speed and quality

What You'll Bring

The Essentials 

• 8+ years of experience in backend engineering, with deep expertise in Java (21+) and Spring Boot.  Familiarity and experience with Groovy.  Experience with Python backend services.
• Track record of designing and building scalable, RESTful JSON APIs.
• Technical skills: Distributed Systems, Java, Groovy, Python, AWS, MySQL, Infra and Monitoring Tools (Ansible, Jenkins, ELK. Graphite, Docker, etc.)
• Automate, Automate, Automate: You know how to write automated tests and can explain how and where to use them (and not). You believe in Continuous Deployment and understand testing's crucial role.
• Desire for elegance and simplicity: Your code should be so powerful, and so simple, that you have little work to do.  "Do the simplest thing that can possibly work" is not just a slogan here; it's a way of life.
• Judgement and Humility: You’re self-aware enough to know you’re going down a rabbit hole and when to raise concerns.  You know that asking for help is not a sign of weakness but rather a strength.

Unafraid of new, unknown tech: You dive into new tech and paradigms that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with eager glee.  You’ve picked up multiple languages over your career and stay curious about new tools, frameworks, and technologies.

• Collaborative spirit: You make everyone around you better 
• Clear communication: You can explain complex things simply

Bonus Points • Pydantic AI • Ansible-based DevOps pipelines • Connected Hardware Experience • MQTT

The Mindset We Love 

• Customer mindset: You stay laser-focused on driving value for our customers
• AI-adoptive: You see AI as a superpower, not a threat.
• Builder mentality: You thrive in a rapid growth environment just on the edge of chaos
• Humans over Process: We prioritize face to face resolution rather than async processes that drag on
• Pick Up a Shovel 🌿 (you help where needed - even out of your area of expertise)
• Feedback is a Gift 🎁 (you have experience gracefully receiving and giving feedback)
• Learn Faster 👟 (ship small features iteratively, learn, and commit to the next step)

🤖 How We Work: AI-Forward Culture

We're not just using AI—we're pioneering how modern teams work with it:

• Tools that amplify you: Access to Copilot, ChatGPT, and all the AIs.
• Time to explore: Time for AI experiments and workflow improvements
• Share & scale: Weekly sessions where we share productivity breakthroughs
• Write less boilerplate: Spend your time shipping features, not writing repetitious code
• Continuous learning: Regular workshops, hackathons, and "wow, look what I built" moments

The result? You'll do the best work of your career, faster than you thought possible.