Handshake
Senior Software Engineer, Backend Platform
$208K–$260K
San Francisco, CA · On-site · Senior · Full-time · Posted Sep 18, 2026
- Experience
- 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, primarily in backend or platform engineering.
About the job
Build and operate backend platform services, APIs, and developer tools supporting Handshake AI and internal AI initiatives.
What you'll do
- Design and operate backend services and APIs; develop shared libraries and platform patterns.
- Improve backend performance, scalability, reliability, observability, and data systems.
- Contribute to AI capabilities and collaborate on integrations, orchestration, evaluation, and incident response.
What they ask for
- Experience building and operating production services and APIs; strong backend architecture, distributed systems, database, reliability, and performance knowledge.
- Strong relational database experience, including schema design, query optimization, indexing, and transactions.
- Practical knowledge of LLM-powered systems, including model/tool integration, RAG, orchestration, evaluation, and observability.
- Ability to independently drive ambiguous projects to production and collaborate effectively.
Nice to have
- Deep TypeScript and Next.js experience is strongly preferred; PostgreSQL experience is especially relevant.
- Familiarity with Temporal, Redis, Elasticsearch, GraphQL, event-driven systems, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, or Docker.
Pay
$208K – $260K (base salary; currency not stated)
Tools
TypeScript, Next.js, PostgreSQL, Temporal, Redis, Elasticsearch, GraphQL, GCP
AI focus
Build shared capabilities and backend systems for LLM-powered and agentic initiatives, including integrations, orchestration, evaluation, observability, and failure handling.
Model-written summary · the original posting is authoritative