Customer.io

Senior Backend Engineer, Platform

Apac, Apac, Uganda

Not SpecifiedCompensation
Expert & Leadership (9+ years)Experience Level
Full TimeJob Type
UnknownVisa
Software, SaaS, Marketing TechnologyIndustries

Backend Engineer

Position Overview

Customer.io is seeking a deeply experienced Backend Engineer to help architect and evolve the infrastructure behind its core platform. This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy solving complex distributed systems challenges at scale.

About Customer.io

Over 7,500 companies, from startups to global brands, utilize Customer.io to send billions of emails, push notifications, in-app messages, and SMS daily. Our platform powers automated communication that users find relevant and valuable. We help teams send smarter messages using real-time behavioral data, powered by Go, React, Ember, and AI.

What We Value

  • Ownership: Drive technical direction across systems and teams, acting with urgency, empathy, and a long-term perspective. Experience leading large-scale infrastructure initiatives is essential.
  • Customer Focus: Understand how infrastructure decisions unlock customer value, prioritizing developer experience, system design, and the impact on the customer experience.
  • Healthy Skepticism: Bring rigor and creativity, questioning established norms and prioritizing forward motion over adherence to best practices alone.

Responsibilities

  • Design and evolve distributed systems in Go to handle billions of daily events and messages, and store/index petabytes of data.
  • Lead architectural decisions concerning performance, reliability, and real-time event processing.
  • Improve service-to-service communication through enhanced APIs, messaging systems, and event-driven patterns.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify and resolve system bottlenecks and issues, improving the customer experience.
  • Address high-throughput challenges across data pipelines, queues, and scheduling infrastructure.
  • Debug production systems at scale using effective instrumentation and resolve issues quickly and confidently.
  • Share knowledge and elevate team capabilities through public progress updates (videos, writing) and mentorship.
  • Leverage AI tools for prototyping, accelerating development, and improving decision-making.

Requirements

  • Significant experience (typically 10+ years) building scalable, distributed systems in Go or similar statically typed languages.
  • Deep experience with both relational (MySQL, Postgres) and non-relational (DynamoDB, BigTable) databases, with a focus on performance optimization.
  • Comfort working in cloud-native environments (AWS, GCP).
  • Familiarity with APIs, observability, and operating production systems.
  • A bias for action over perfection, and pride in owning technical decisions.

Compensation & Benefits

  • Salary: $160,000 - $250,000 USD (or equivalent) depending on experience and market rate.
  • Benefits:
    • 100% coverage of medical, dental, vision, mental health, and supplemental insurance premiums for employees and their families.
    • 16 weeks paid parental leave.
    • Unlimited Paid Time Off (PTO).
    • Stipends for remote work and wellness.
    • Professional development budget.
    • See full benefits here

Application Instructions

Our hiring process is designed to be clear and informative:

  1. Application: Submit your application and explain your interest in the role.
  2. Recruiter Call (30 mins): A discussion about your career goals and how Customer.io operates.
  3. Behavioral Interview (60 mins): An interview with a hiring manager focusing on ownership, product thinking, and collaboration.
  4. Technical Interview (60 mins): A collaborative system design conversation centered on scaling challenges.
  5. Take-Home Assignment: A short, realistic task representative of work at Customer.io.
  6. Assignment Review Call (60 mins): A discussion to review your completed assignment.

Location Type

  • [Information not provided]

Employment Type

  • [Information not provided]

Skills

Distributed Systems
Go
System Architecture
Performance Optimization
Reliability Engineering
Real-time Event Processing
API Design
Messaging Systems
Event-Driven Architecture
Data Pipelines
Queueing Systems
Scheduling Infrastructure
Production Debugging
Scalability

Customer.io

Marketing automation for customer engagement

About Customer.io

Customer.io is a marketing automation platform that helps businesses engage with their customers throughout their lifecycle. It allows companies to segment their audience based on real-time events, enabling personalized messaging that enhances customer connections and engagement. Unlike many competitors, Customer.io offers A/B testing and professional support services to optimize marketing strategies. The goal is to empower businesses to send data-driven messages that improve customer engagement and drive revenue.

Portland, OregonHeadquarters
2012Year Founded
$9.6MTotal Funding
SEEDCompany Stage
Consulting, Consumer SoftwareIndustries
201-500Employees

Benefits

Unlimited Paid Time Off
Paid Parental Leave
Health Insurance
401(k) Company Match
Healthy Lifestyle Budget
Remote Work Options
Co-working Space Rental Reimbursement
Professional Development Budget
Home Office Stipend
Sabbatical Leave

Risks

Increased competition from other platforms integrating with Vision Pro.
Reliance on Twilio SMS could pose risks if service issues arise.
Emergence of comprehensive notification solutions like Knock challenges market position.

Differentiation

Customer.io offers real-time audience segmentation for personalized messaging.
The platform supports A/B testing for continuous campaign optimization.
Customer.io integrates with Vision Pro for VR marketing campaigns.

Upsides

Integration with Apple Vision Pro opens new VR marketing opportunities.
Partnership with Twilio enhances robust SMS messaging solutions.
Participation in CEE Startup Challenge expands market reach and innovation.

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