Senior Backend Engineer, Jellyfish
APIs, Data, and Scale
$165-235k
+ Offer Equity
More information about location
Engineering team management platform
Be an early applicant
Engineering team management platform
201-500 employees
Be an early applicant
$165-235k
+ Offer Equity
More information about location
201-500 employees
Company mission
To make engineering leaders’ lives better by elevating the practice of engineering management.
Role
Who you are
- 10+ years of experience building SaaS products with a focus on Back End development
- Strong skills in Python, and passion for building production software systems using Django
- Expert-level abilities in data modeling in relational database systems and experience with and interest in other database technologies such as columnar systems
- Experience with scaling, performance, and benchmarking of APIs and data processing systems
- Fluency with tools such as Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, Kiro and a track record of using them to build and ship fast
- Have worked in or interested in a growth-stage startup
- Curiosity - great at asking questions, figuring out what needs to be done, building consensus, and executing
- Love learning new things and teaching others what you know
- Strong communication skills
- Enjoyment of collaborative work
What the job involves
- Ellyfish's engineering team is solving one of the hardest problems in engineering operations: understanding how teams actually organize themselves and deliver work
- To help us get there, we're looking for a senior backend engineer who loves untangling complexity and building systems that scale
- You'll join a tight-knit team of senior engineers working to map the real structure of our customers' engineering organizations
- Teams don't organize the way org charts suggest
- Projects span multiple teams
- Dependencies create hidden bottlenecks
- Your job is to build the capabilities that let our product represent team configurations as they actually exist
- This means finding pragmatic solutions—the right abstractions that capture 80% of the problem
- Aspire to handle the complexity, but don't fall into the completionism trap
- The goal is customers seeing their organization clearly and understanding how teams are performing and projects are progressing
- This role demands someone who can navigate complicated data models, trace dependencies across systems, and design solutions that are both powerful and maintainable
- You'll work with data from project management tools, version control systems, and collaboration platforms to build a complete picture of how engineering work flows through an organization
- The best candidates are senior engineers who get energized by complex technical challenges, care deeply about data modeling and system design, and want to build products that help engineering leaders make better decisions
- Design, plan and implement key features as part of a highly effective development team
- Rapidly deliver value for our customers by pushing features to our AWS-hosted SaaS environment daily, with automated CI/CD pipelines
- Provide technical and product expertise within your team and across the organization
- Communicate effectively about project status and technical issues
- Participate in your team’s agile process and work to continually improve your team’s capabilities
- Provide support for production operations of the Jellyfish product
- Actively participate in a culture supportive of growth and inclusion on your team
Our take
Engineering leaders are often left in the dark when it comes to exactly what their teams are doing when developing new products. This was a source of frustration shared by the founders of Jellyfish, who had similar visibility issues when running their own engineering and product teams.
Its platform attempts to do for engineering team leaders what CRM systems have done for sales teams. It aims to keep managers in the loop around projects, including the productivity of individual engineers, where time and resources are spent, and whether products are on schedule.
The company has a long list of customers including Toast, Medium, DataRobot, Digital Guardian, New Relic, and Mastercard subsidiary SessionM. The global transition to remote work saw a surge in business for Jellyfish, which has led to an increase in its headcount and further revenue growth.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
5% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 4 rounds)
Feb 2022
$71m
SERIES C
Jan 2021
$31.5m
SERIES B
Total funding: $117.2m
Company benefits
- Hybrid Work Environment: While we have an office in Boston, MA, we enjoy a hybrid work environment. We don’t have a company-wide policy on the days required to be in the office. We have many fully remote employees around the US and in Boston. What’s important is getting the work done and learning from each other, over where you’re located
- Outings and Events: We’re all about building solid relationships, and we love to have fun while we’re at it! Whether trying out new restaurants together, catching a Red Sox game, or taking a cooking class, our team outings are a great way to bond with your colleagues
- Time Off: Time away from work is essential for everyone, which is why we offer Flexible Time Off so you can take the time when you need it. We also have 13 company holidays and encourage everyone to take time off for religious or cultural holidays that aren’t in our schedule
- 401(k) and Financial Wellbeing: We offer both Traditional and ROTH 401(k) retirement savings plans. We also have periodic financial education webinars and opportunities for you to meet 1-1 with a Certified Financial Planner to make sure you’re on track to meet your financial goals
- Equity: On top of a competitive salary, we offer stock options so you can be a part of Jellyfish’s future success. We want you to have a stake in what we’re creating here
- Health Benefits: We believe in caring for our employees and their families, so we offer a competitive benefits package that includes top-notch medical, dental, and vision coverage. You can rest assured that you and your loved ones are covered with our comprehensive plan
- Parental Leave: Bringing a new family member home is an exciting time, and we want you to be fully present for it. We offer paid parental leave to help you care for your loved ones during this special time. Parents also support one another in our dedicated #parents Slack channel
- Commuter benefits: If you choose to go into our Boston office regularly, you can pay for your commute to and from work using pre-tax dollars with our commuter benefits program or pre-tax dollars to pay for parking near the office or at a Commuter Rail stop
- Pet Insurance: Pets are just as much a part of your family so we offer discounted pet insurance to our employees through Wishbone
- Employee Resource Blooms: Belonging is an important part of doing your best work. These ERBs provide support and community for employees: Out at Jellyfish, Jellyfish of Color, and Women of Jellyfish
Company HQ
Financial District, Boston, MA
Leadership
Philip Braden
(Co-Founder)Philip worked as a Consultant for 4 years before 7 years at Endeca and working as VP of Product at Vocus. They left their role of 4 years as a Fishbowl Marketing Manager to co-found Jellyfish in 2017.
David Gourley
(Co-Founder)David studied at UCB before working at Inktomi, Endeca, and Ludic Labs for 15 years. They spent 4 years at Groupon, moving from VP Product and Engineering to founding Jellyfish.
Andrew Lau
(Co-Founder & CEO)Having studied at MIT, Andrew founded Broadway Commerce in 2009, before being a Redstar Entrepreneur in Residence and founding LoopIt. They left their CSO role at Nanigans in 2014 to co-found Jellyfish as CEO in 2017.
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