Backend Engineer, Runway
Member of Technical Staff, API
$240-290k
The provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range
AI-powered creativity tools
Open for applications
AI-powered creativity tools
201-500 employees
Open for applications
$240-290k
The provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range
201-500 employees
Company mission
To ensure that anyone anywhere can tell their stories.
Role
Who you are
- If you're passionate about API development, love TypeScript, and want to own systems end-to-end, this is the role for you
- 3+ years of industry experience building production APIs
- Strong TypeScript experience, so you can jump in and be productive immediately
- Experience owning systems end-to-end: infrastructure, monitoring, logging, metrics, incident response
- Understanding of API design patterns, REST principles, and async workflows
- Experience with relational databases (Postgres preferred) and query optimization
- Experience architecting production-ready systems at scale using cloud primitives from AWS, GCP, or Azure
- Ability to rapidly prototype solutions and iterate on them with tight product deadlines
- Humility and open mindedness; at Runway we love to learn from one another
What the job involves
- We're looking for an API engineer to join our core API team and help scale Runway's platform serving millions of users and handling thousands of requests per second. You'll work on the critical infrastructure that powers both our public API (used by external developers) and internal tools, managing user data, task orchestration, billing, permissions, and asset management
- This is a high-impact role on a mature, production system. You'll build enterprise features, optimize database performance, design async workflows, and ensure reliability at scale
- Our API endpoints for real-time collaboration and media asset management is written in TypeScript, and runs in ECS containers on AWS Fargate. We leverage multiple AWS-native components, such as S3, CloudFront, Lambda, Kinesis, and SQS, as building blocks of our infrastructure
- Our inference backend is written in Python (PyTorch, TorchScript), and is deployed across multiple clusters / cloud providers. We use Kubernetes for container orchestration, and k8s-native components such as Flyte, Kueue, and Kyverno efficient job orchestration. We invest in prometheus and grafana for monitoring, and Terraform to manage our infrastructure
- Own the full API lifecycle from design and implementation to monitoring, optimization, and documentation for both public and internal APIs
- Design and implement async workflows for task orchestration, content moderation, prompt enhancement, and post-processing pipelines
- Optimize database queries and improve performance for a high-traffic Postgres database
- Build rate limiting, fraud detection, and credit management systems
- Implement comprehensive API security, rate limiting, authentication, and monitoring systems to ensure reliability at scale
- Improve the public API developer experience with better documentation, SDKs, and tooling
- Improve the performance, reliability, and code quality of our codebases
Our take
Runway is revolutionising content creation and video editing with machine learning, harnessing the expansive capabilities of web-based tools. At the forefront of this transformation, the startup offers a suite of AI-powered editing tools tailored for designers, artists, and creators, setting itself apart in an industry dominated by enterprise-focused software solutions.
The company has rapidly gained recognition among some of the world's largest brands, including R/GA, New Balance, Google, and IBM, by appealing directly to creative professionals. This approach has not only solidified Runway's position in the market but also facilitated its integration into the design curricula of esteemed institutions such as NYU, RISD< and MIT.
In a testament to its growing influence and success, Runway achieved unicorn status in 2023 following a landmark $100M funding round, which valued the company at $1.5B. This milestone not only reflects investor confidence but also positions Runway to expand its innovative tools and further democratise access to advanced video editing capabilities globally.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
112% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Feb 2026
$315m
SERIES E
Apr 2025
$308m
SERIES D
Total funding: $861.5m
Company benefits
- 100% medical, dental, and vision coverage: We cover 100% of medical, dental and vision for our US employees AND their dependents. Based on the plans selected, we have complimentary mental health benefits and a free One Medical membership
- Unlimited days of PTO: We have unlimited PTO with a minimum of 15 days a year. We also have a paid sabbatical program after employees have been with Runway for 3 years and again after 5 years. And of course, we can't forget about Summer Fridays
- 401k Matching, 3% matching: Plan for the future! We provide a 3% 401K match for our US based employees
- Remote $250 stipend: All of our employees outside of commuting distance to the office, can expense up to $250 per month on co-working spaces, lunch or groceries, and internet connection
- Donations supporting our community: Beyond our employees, we have a commitment to our communities. Every quarter, Runway employees choose an organization for the company to support through a donation
- Custom setup, tech setup stipend: In addition to the choice of laptop, all employees get a stipend to customize their tech set up as they want
- Parental leave for all parents: We offer 16 weeks of fully paid parental leave plus a gradual return to work plan. This coverage is for all parents, regardless of how a child is brought into the family
- L&D $600 stipend: We’re investing in our employees’ long term growth by giving every employee $600 per year to spend on their personal or professional development. That means conferences, courses, and books, oh my!
- Wellness $600 stipend: We set ambitious goals and work hard to achieve them, so we believe it’s important to invest in employees’ mental and physical health. The $600 annual wellness stipend can be used for anything from therapy sessions to gym memberships
Company HQ
Civic Center, New York, NY
Leadership
Anastasis Germanidis
(Co-Founder & CTO)Trained as a Backend Engineer, they have held roles at Zocdoc, Chartbeat, and Quantcast as well as working as a Machine Learning Researcher in Computer Vision for IBM.
Alejandro Matamala-Ortiz
(Co-Founder & CDO)Previously co-founded Deenty, an online booking platform for dentist appointments.
Cristóbal Valenzuela
(Co-Founder & CEO)Worked as a Researcher at New York University from 2018 to 2019. Also spent time as a Professor at the UAI School of Design.
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