About this opportunity
SkillBench lists this Staff Backend Engineer opportunity in san francisco, California. Review the employer’s description below for duties, qualifications and application requirements.
Job description
Overview
We’re hiring at SkillBench: Staff Backend Engineer - Production Platform (Tech Lead)
AI is rapidly transforming how software gets built. With coding assistants like Claude Code and Cursor, the job isn’t just “write code faster” — it’s shifting toward directing, verifying, iterating, and learning in a new workflow. Adoption is accelerating, leadership is demanding ROI, and teams are making big bets under uncertainty. But AI changes more than speed: it reshapes how developers work and the skills they build. Most teams still can’t tell whether AI adoption is compounding advantage or creating risk that only shows up months later.
SkillBench (a startup that I co-founded with Matt Beane) is building the measurement layer for AI-native software development. We instrument developer workflows in a privacy-first way (without surveillance) and translate longitudinal workflow signals into insights that leaders can actually act on—while giving individual developers something they genuinely want and can use immediately: visibility into whether they’re getting better, where they’re improving (or regressing), and what their real growth trajectory looks like in an AI-assisted world.
Beyond measurement, we’re building the predictive layer that turns telemetry into org design decisions—where capability is compounding vs. eroding, how to redesign work, and how to steer AI adoption responsibly over time.
We’re a research-driven team of ~10 engineers and researchers across Korea, Taiwan, and California, with strategic business and research collaborations with top global firms. We’re targeting product v1 in Q1 2026.
Responsibilities
We’re hiring a Staff Backend Engineer - Production Platform (Tech Lead) to lead productionization for our upcoming launches and key product iterations, and own our architecture and engineering standards as we scale.
Lead productionization for upcoming launches and key product iterations
Own our architecture and engineering standards as we scale
High ownership, meaningful equity, and full-time role (contract-to-perm also possible).
Qualifications
7+ years building production backend and data systems
Strong architecture leadership + mentoring track record
IaC / CI/CD mastery (Terraform/Helm/GitOps or equivalent)
Observability + SLO experience (Prometheus/Grafana/Tempo or equivalents)
Experience in productionizing analytics / telemetry / ML pipelines into reliable services
B2B SaaS + AI product experience strongly preferred (sensitive enterprise data / regulated domain experience is a plus)
Optional but highly recommended
Interest and experience in building developer tools and AI-enabled engineering workflows involving modern coding assistants such as Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot
High ownership, meaningful equity, and full-time role (contract-to-perm also possible)
How to apply
If you’re interested, send your resume or LinkedIn + 1–2 bullets on a project where you took a prototype/analytics system into production (bonus if it involved strict data governance).
To apply: Email (subject: Production Platform TL) or DM me.
If someone comes to mind, I’d love an intro! Sharing is hugely appreciated.
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Worksite address
san francisco, CA, 94199, US
Who can apply
Review the original listing for work authorization, qualifications and employer requirements.