Backend-Leaning Product Engineer

About the Role Join a small, high-ownership product team at an early-stage B2B SaaS startup as a backend-leaning product engineer . You'll own customer-facing features end-to-end, navigate messy integrations and legacy systems, and make product and engineering trade-offs with speed and strong judgment. This is a role for someone who thrives in ambiguity, moves fast, and cares deeply about shipping real products that customers use. What You'll Do Own features end-to-end — from design through shipping and iteration — with minimal PM oversight. Build and maintain backend systems, APIs, data models, and automation pipelines. Integrate with external tools, legacy systems, and third-party services. Design workflows and orchestration for AI/automation-driven product features. Debug production issues and exercise strong engineering judgment under pressure. Collaborate closely with founders, customers, and cross-functional stakeholders in a hybrid San Francisco setting. Balance full-stack work when required, with a clear emphasis on backend ownership. What We're Looking For Required: Backend-focused software engineering with hands-on experience designing, implementing, and shipping customer-facing features. Demonstrated ownership of the full feature lifecycle — ideation, implementation, and iteration based on customer feedback. Track record of shipping real products, ideally in 0-to-1 or ambiguous, fast-moving environments. Strong cross-functional collaboration and communication skills. Must be legally eligible to work in the US without employer sponsorship. Based in San Francisco or willing to relocate; hybrid/in-office presence required. Nice to Have: Experience with applied AI, agentic workflows, RAG pipelines, or LLM-enabled features. Python proficiency (modern web/backend stacks considered — engineering quality matters more than specific stack). Systems integration experience with external APIs and legacy platforms. Early-stage startup experience or founding engineer background. Not a fit if you are: frontend-only, data/internal-tools-only, pure DevOps/SRE without product ownership, pure research ML without shipping experience, or primarily motivated by corporate titles. Compensation & Benefits Base salary: up to $275,000 depending on experience. Equity: meaningful equity package. No visa sponsorship available. Location San Francisco, CA — hybrid/on-site. Candidates must be based in SF or willing to relocate.