Senior Software Engineer, Infra/Systems

we're looking for exceptional staff or principal-level engineers to help build and maintain what comes next. If you're passionate about distributed systems and have experience designing and operating large-scale infra, we'd love to talk!

This is a hands-on role that moves between architecture and execution. You'll work across core systems like our database and synchronization layer, and build out newer primitives like branching and analytics as they take shape. A lot of Convex's platform requires serious design work where we can't just follow best-practices since we're the ones defining them.

If you like the idea of designing a new storage layer that minimizes B-tree churn, or coming up with an API for managing ephemeral state that might disappear if a node restarts, or setting all that aside for a week and landing something simple and pragmatic because we're a startup and need to ship, you're going to like it here.

We value simplicity, leveraged work, and strong ownership. Our team is high-ownership and cares a lot about oncall but this isn't an ops role - we want people who design and build things the right way... or as close as is possible at a startup.

You'll work closely with the engineering team and CTO on some of the most important technical decisions at the company.

- Design, build, and maintain Convex's global cloud infrastructure.

- Investigate and improve the performance and reliability of our systems.

- Be self-directed in prioritizing the right projects to work on, in close collaboration with the engineering team and CTO (hi! this is me, James).

- Own architectural decisions that shape the long-term behavior of multiple core systems.

- Help establish technical direction and engineering standards as Convex grows.

- Work across the stack when needed, rather than being constrained to a single layer of infrastructure.

- ~6+ years of experience in backend or systems engineering, though we care far more about depth of ownership and experience operating mission-critical systems than years alone.

- Experience building and scaling large systems, including owning systems through major scale transitions or building core infrastructure from scratch.

- Strong systems judgment: understanding tradeoffs and knowing when to keep systems simple versus when to invest in complexity.

- Experience working in fast-moving environments where requirements shift and many of the hardest problems are not fully specified upfront.

- Ability to write high quality code (knowledge of Rust is a plus, but you'll figure it out).

This is an attempt to outline some characteristics of engineers who tend to thrive at Convex. We have a high demand for conceptual thought and architectural sensibilities, while also having the typical demands of a small startup.

If someone has a few years of experience, it's extremely valuable for them to have worked closely with a person, team, or organization that is truly excellent in any domain. Excellence can't be learned passively since it requires being meaningfully better than the status quo. What we care about most, though, is whether they have developed a sense for what high-quality engineering looks like.

This shows up in how they reason about systems, the standards they hold for their own work, and the kinds of tradeoffs they find acceptable. They should recognize that excellence is rare and that developing real engineering judgment requires years of deliberate work.

*The salary range for this full-time position is > $240,000 + equity + benefits