Hex's Foundations team builds and evolves the application-level infrastructure that powers Hex, owning the shared backend systems, frameworks, and primitives that other teams depend on. The work spans APIs, realtime transport, storage frameworks, background processing, and internal tooling, with a focus on durable systems that scale rather than isolated features. Hex is hiring a Senior Backend Software Engineer to design, maintain, and evolve these core systems, working closely with product engineering teams to turn common patterns into robust, reusable systems while helping define standards and raise the backend quality bar. The role is primarily backend-focused, with frontend experience helpful for understanding end-to-end workflows.
Responsibilities
- ▹Design and build backend frameworks and services used across the company
- ▹Own and evolve critical shared systems, including APIs, realtime transport, and job orchestration
- ▹Improve reliability, performance, observability, and security of foundational backend infrastructure
- ▹Partner with product teams to turn recurring needs into shared abstractions
- ▹Lead technical design discussions and help set architectural direction
- ▹Drive refactors, migrations, and system upgrades that reduce long-term complexity
- ▹Improve internal tooling to support debugging, operations, and customer-facing workflows
- ▹Mentor other engineers and contribute to strong engineering standards and practices
Requirements
- ▹5+ years of professional software engineering experience with a strong backend focus
- ▹Experience working with TypeScript/Node.js and SQL
- ▹Experience building and maintaining shared backend systems or frameworks used by multiple teams
- ▹Strong understanding of API design, distributed systems, and asynchronous workflows
- ▹Experience working with relational databases and data modeling at scale
- ▹Familiarity with background job systems, queues, or workflow orchestration tools
- ▹Comfort operating and evolving production systems over time
- ▹Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred)
- ▹Strong communication skills and a collaborative, leverage-oriented mindset
Nice to have
- ▹Experience with Python
- ▹Hands-on experience with GraphQL, WebSockets, BullMQ, or Temporal
- ▹Familiarity with observability tooling (metrics, tracing, logging)
- ▹Background in data platforms, developer tools, or collaborative systems
- ▹Experience with frontend technologies (e.g. React, TypeScript) for end-to-end context
- ▹Open-source contributions, especially in backend or infrastructure projects
Soft skills
What we offer
- ▹Competitive total rewards package with market-benched salary and equity
- ▹Comprehensive health benefits
- ▹Flexible paid time off
- ▹Salary range for this role: $215,000 - $270,000
About the company
Hex builds a web-based notebook and app authoring platform. The frontend uses TypeScript and React with Apollo GraphQL and Redux, the backend uses TypeScript to power an Express/Apollo GraphQL server interacting with Postgres, Redis, and Kubernetes, and deployment relies on Terraform, Helm, and AWS.