About the Role.

We're looking for an experienced backend engineer to join Fearn as we build up a scalable infrastructure. You'll play a crucial role in architecting and building robust backend systems that power our platform, while mentoring junior engineers and shaping our high level architecture.

What you'll work on.

• Designing and building the production APIs and backend services that power Fearn's platform. You'll make the key high level architectural calls that will determine how we scale, cut complexity, and how fast we can ship.

• Working across databases and distributed systems to keep the platform fast and reliable as load grows. 

• Owning your work from design through deployment. 

What you'll bring.

• 3+ years of backend engineering experience and strong Python proficiency.

• Experience building production APIs and working with databases and distributed systems.

• Comfort with deployment tooling: CI/CD, Kubernetes, Docker containers.

• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and hybrid cloud environments.

• Experience with monitoring, logging, and observability tools.

• A track record of turning ambiguous problems into momentum and seeing things through to impact.

Bonus.

• Familiarity with Svelte or TypeScript for occasional frontend work.

• Hands-on experience with on-premise deployment and infrastructure management.

• Experience scaling deployments of custom or open-source models.

• Experience with real-time collaborative software, particularly text editors.

• Previous startup experience and comfort with ambiguity.

What we offer.

• Competitive salary and meaningful equity, calibrated to experience (4-year vest).

• Health insurance, 401(k) with company match.

• Meals in office.

About our interview process.

We run an efficient and thorough interview process to ensure a good fit on both sides. That being said, we will try our best to make the process as fast as you need it to be. Please see details below:

Member of technical staff.

Introductory chat: We will tell you a bit about Fearn, learn about you and your prior experiences, and answer any questions you might have. The goal is to assess whether or not we are aligned.

Take home system design interview with follow up: You will have a few days to work on a couple of system design problems. Afterwards, we will meet to discuss your implementation to understand your thought process. Our goal is to understand how you reason about high level architecture choices, how you decide upon solutions given various constraints, and overall problem solving skills.

Onsite: Join us in person to meet the rest of the team.

Reference checks: We will conduct a minimum of 2 reference checks. Be prepared to share references of prior employers, classmates, or anyone you might have worked with in the past.

We may use AI note takers during interviews to make sure we are fully focused on you. Please let us know if this is an issue for you.