Role: Staff Backend Engineer (Ruby, Platform Modernization + AI-Assisted Development)
Industry: HR Tech / Enterprise SaaS
Salary: $150K–$200K + annual profit sharing
Type: Full-time, Permanent

What They Do

Our client is a profitable, 20+ year-old Enterprise SaaS company undergoing a multi-year platform modernization. The backend is built in Ruby and is being evolved toward a more modular, scalable, and AI-enabled platform while continuing to support a large enterprise customer base. The environment combines startup-level urgency with long-term stability.

The Role

This is a Staff-level backend role for a deeply experienced Ruby engineer who will operate as a technical authority across the platform. You’ll drive architectural direction, lead complex refactors, and define backend engineering standards—while staying hands-on in the codebase.

AI-assisted development tools are used to accelerate delivery. Your responsibility is to ensure system integrity, correctness, performance, and long-term maintainability.

You’ll be responsible for:

• Owning backend architecture in a large, long-lived Ruby codebase 

• Leading legacy-to-modern migrations and service decomposition

• Designing scalable APIs, service boundaries, and data models

• Driving performance, reliability, and observability improvements

• Establishing backend engineering standards, patterns, and review practices

• Partnering with frontend and product teams to define clean, durable API contracts

• Evaluating and correcting AI-generated Ruby code to prevent architectural drift or subtle bugs

• Acting as a technical escalation point and mentoring senior engineers

• Influencing long-term modernization roadmap: current system ? next-gen platform (2024) ? deeper backend rebuild (2027)

About You:

• 10+ years of professional backend engineering experience

• Deep expertise in Ruby (custom frameworks, service-oriented Ruby systems, or similar)

• Proven experience owning and evolving large, mission-critical production systems

• Strong understanding of API design, system architecture, and data modeling

• Comfort modernizing legacy systems with minimal customer impact

• Clear technical judgment and ability to articulate architectural trade-offs

• Experience influencing technical direction across teams without direct authority

• Interest or experience with AI-assisted development tools (Copilot, GPT-based codegen, etc.)

• High-ownership mindset and comfort operating in ambiguity

Compensation & Perks:

• $150K–$200K base salary

• Annual profit sharing

• Full medical, dental, and vision coverage

• PTO, paid holidays, and flexible remote work

• Stretch bonuses aligned with company OKRs

• Remote-friendly; optional monthly in-office meetup (Austin area)