Staff Backend Engineer
Nectar Social
Location
Palo Alto
Employment Type
Full time
Location Type
Hybrid
Department
Engineering
Compensation
- $225K – $300K • Offers Equity • Offers Bonus
About Us
We're living through a fundamental shift in how people discover, evaluate, and purchase products. The next generation doesn't respond to traditional marketing -- they build relationships with brands through authentic social interactions, seek recommendations from communities they trust, and expect personalized experiences that feel human, not corporate.
At Nectar Social, we're building the AI-native social operating system that enables this new era of commerce. We believe every social interaction should deepen the relationship between brands and their communities while creating genuine value for both sides.
Founded by ex-Meta product and engineering leaders, we've raised over $30M in total capital from investors including GV and True Ventures. We work with brands like Oura Health, Caraway, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Kosas, OLIPOP, and many more. We're building the future of social commerce -- where community, conversation, and commerce converge.
The Role
We're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to design and scale the core systems that power Nectar's platform. You'll work on the infrastructure that ingests large volumes of social data, runs AI agents on that data in real time, and delivers insights to customers through analytics and automation.
This role combines deep backend engineering with technical leadership. You'll shape architectural decisions, improve reliability and performance, and help establish engineering practices as the team and platform scale.
What You'll Be Doing
Design and build backend systems that ingest and process large volumes of social data from platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn
Develop resilient integrations with third-party APIs and optimize the infrastructure that powers our AI workloads
Improve reliability, performance, and cost efficiency across our backend and data pipelines as the platform scales
Establish operational best practices including monitoring, incident response, and on-call culture
Write architecture documents and guide infrastructure and tooling decisions across the engineering team
Mentor engineers and contribute to building strong engineering culture and development practices
What We're Looking For
Strong backend engineering experience designing, building, and operating production systems
Deep understanding of system design, distributed systems, and scalable backend architecture
Experience integrating external APIs and building reliable data pipelines
Interest in mentoring engineers and shaping engineering culture as the company grows
Curiosity about how AI is changing software development and interest in AI-assisted engineering workflows
Comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment with high ownership and end-to-end responsibility
Bonus Points
Experience working with high-scale data pipelines or real-time data processing systems
Familiarity with modern infrastructure tools such as AWS, Pulumi, Postgres, ClickHouse, or similar technologies
Experience integrating AI or machine learning systems into production environments
Previous experience working at an early-stage or rapidly scaling startup
What We Offer
Competitive compensation and early equity
Health, vision, and dental benefits + 401(k) match
Clear career growth opportunities as the company scales
Free lunch in the heart of University Ave. in Palo Alto
Deep exposure to cutting-edge AI tooling and the opportunity to shape how brands use it
A collaborative, ambitious team defining a new category of AI-native marketing infrastructure
Compensation Range: $225K - $300K