Backend Engineer, Techstars
$115-130k
Seed startup accelerator
Be an early applicant
Seed startup accelerator
501-1000 employees
Be an early applicant
$115-130k
501-1000 employees
Company mission
To invest in an unprecedented number of startups per year to enable more capital to flow to more entrepreneurs around the world in order to deliver exceptional returns to our investors.
Role
Who you are
- Solid experience building and maintaining data pipelines — ETL/ELT, data ingestion, transformation, and delivery to downstream consumers
- Proficiency with PostgreSQL: schema design, migrations, query optimization, data modeling
- Hands-on experience with Kubernetes in production (AWS EKS a plus), including familiarity with Helm, kubectl, and debugging workloads
- Experience with infrastructure-as-code tooling (OpenTofu, Terraform)
- Strong Python skills for data engineering, scripting, and automation
- Strong understanding of agentic development in a team environment
- Familiarity with AWS services (S3, RDS, Lambda, IAM, and related tooling)
- A DevOps mindset: you care about observability (Prometheus/Grafana experience a plus), reliability, and what happens after code ships
- Excellent debugging and troubleshooting skills — you can work from symptoms to root cause on unfamiliar systems
- Experience working in agile development environments with a product team
- Strong communication skills — you work well across teams and can explain technical tradeoffs clearly
Desirable
- Experience with Salesforce data structures and CRM-adjacent integrations
- Knowledge of financial or investment data (venture capital, startup portfolio management)
- Familiarity with data pipeline orchestration tools (Airflow or similar)
- Experience with JavaScript/TypeScript for backend services
- Prior work at a startup, accelerator, or investment firm
What the job involves
- As a Backend Engineer at Techstars, you will be the connective tissue between our data infrastructure and the product teams building Techstars OS — the operating system that drives how we run accelerators, support founders, and make investment decisions
- You will own our data pipelines, keep our cloud infrastructure stable and secure, and work across teams to ship reliable, observable systems
- This role blends backend data engineering with platform/infrastructure work; the right person is equally comfortable building an ELT pipeline as they are debugging a Kubernetes deployment
- Design, build, and maintain data pipelines that ingest, transform, and serve data across Techstars systems — including Salesforce, PostgreSQL, Kafka, and internal APIs
- Own and evolve our Kubernetes-based infrastructure (Helm, OpenTofu, Github Actions), including deployment tooling, secrets management, and cluster health
- Partner with our senior security engineer on infrastructure reliability — incident response, observability, and proactive improvements to keep things stable
- Maintain and improve our PostgreSQL database layer: schema design, migrations, query performance, and data integrity
- Support Salesforce data flows and integrations with our broader platform
- Build and maintain internal tooling and integrations that connect third-party SaaS tools to Techstars OS
- Contribute to engineering standards: CI/CD practices, testing, code review, documentation
- Work in an agile team environment with a product backlog, sprints, and regular delivery to production
Our take
Techstars runs a startup acceleration program that guides aspiring entrepreneurs in launching their startups successfully. Each year, Techstars selects a number of early-stage companies to participate in a 3-month accelerator programme, which includes $120K in funding, mentorship, and financial support.
In response to the rapid pace of technological innovation, generating numerous new ideas, Techstar recognises the potential of many promising concepts going unnoticed. By investing both financially and inspirationally in startups, Techstars aims to not only support these ventures but also generate significant returns through equity investments.
Due to funding difficulties, Techstars decided to close several of its European accelerator programmes in 2026, shifting its focus from quantity to quality. It still runs out of New York, Amsterdam and London, and despite global funding challenges, maintains its reputation as a leader in startup acceleration.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
24% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Company HQ
Little Brazil, New York, NY
Leadership
David Cohen
(Co-Founder & CEO)Having studied at the University of Central Florida, they worked as a Software Engineer and spent 4 years at Automated Dispatch Services. They then founded ZOLL Data Systems, Pinpoint Technologies, and more.
Brad Feld
(Co-Founder)Previously a Managing Director at Softbank Technology Ventures, Mobius Venture Capital and Intensity Ventures.
David Brown
(Co-Founder & Board Member)Previously Founded iCentric Foundation and served as the President at Zoll. Currently, they are an Adjunct Professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a Partner at Zintinus.
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