Senior Staff Software Engineer, Patreon
Backend Platform
$296-444k
Offers Equity
Funding platform for creatives
Be an early applicant
Funding platform for creatives
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
$296-444k
Offers Equity
1001+ employees
Company mission
To put creators in control of their work and their futures by strengthening the bond between them and their communities.
Role
Who you are
- Extensive experience building large-scale backend systems, with depth in distributed systems and platform architecture (typically 10+ years, or equivalent demonstrated expertise)
- Deep expertise in distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, and low-latency architectures that support millions of DAUs
- Experience with databases, caching systems, and storage technologies (e.g. MySQL, Postgres, Redis, DynamoDB)
- Strong understanding of data modeling, storage systems, caching, queues, and event-driven architectures
- Experience in performance optimization across APIs, databases, caching layers, and distributed services
- Strong operational excellence mindset, including incident response and production debugging
- Experience operating systems in cloud-native environments such as AWS and Kubernetes-based infrastructure
- Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Java, or Rust
- Ability to communicate complex architectural trade-offs clearly in writing and in cross-functional forums
- Experience mentoring Staff and Senior engineers and contributing to engineering culture through design reviews, documentation, or team standards
- If you’re excited about a role but your past experience doesn’t match with every bullet point outlined above, we strongly encourage you to apply anyway. If you’re a creator at heart, are energized by our mission, and share our company values, we’d love to hear from you
What the job involves
- The Backend Platform team builds the foundational systems and infrastructure that power Patreon's creator platform. We're responsible for the core backend services, APIs, databases, infrastructure, and developer tooling that enable product teams across the company to ship quickly, reliably, and at scale
- This team is growing and investing in foundational platform capabilities that will support Patreon's next phase of scale and product expansion
- Define and drive the technical strategy for Patreon's backend platform and foundational infrastructure
- Lead architecture and implementation of scalable distributed systems, APIs, event-driven systems, and platform services
- Lead modernization efforts across backend architecture, service boundaries, data access patterns, and infrastructure
- Establish technical standards and best practices around reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability
- Partner with product engineering teams to ensure platform capabilities align with business and product needs
- Shape cross-functional technical decision-making at organizational scale
- Help evolve operational maturity around incident management, resiliency, and production excellence
- Mentor Staff and Senior engineers across the organization through design reviews, technical leadership, and hands-on collaboration
Our take
Creatives face two major struggles in the online space: getting eyes (or ears) on their work, and getting paid for it. Patreon was founded to solve both problems with a platform that would provide a space for creators to host and promote their work, and offer supporters a way to show their support through a regular paid subscription.
Patreon has been a leader in the content subscription space since its founding, but recently has come under pressure from newer rivals such as Substack and Ko-fi. It has maintained its position by shifting its focus from being primarily a marketplace for supporters to find creatives that interest them to being a toolbox for content creators to promote their work. While the site's creatives value this approach it remains to be seen whether Patreon will be able to return to the growth it was enjoying in previous years.
Despite the inroads made by competitors and a troubling global economic outlook making finances tougher for content creators and their supporters, Patreon is still a leader in its space, with over 250,000 active creators having made $3.5B through the platform.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Apr 2021
$155m
SERIES F
Sep 2020
$90m
SERIES E
Total funding: $352.1m
Company benefits
- Health Coverage: Medical, dental, and vision plans are available to our US employees and their dependents. Our plans have a nationwide network and we also cover a primary care concierge membership.
- Balance & Wellness: We offer a generous Flexible Time Off policy, in addition to days throughout the year where everyone takes the same day off to recharge our batteries. Employees and their dependents also have access to therapy, coaching, and Employee Assistance Programs services.
- Family Planning: We provide 20 weeks of paid parental leave, fertility, adoption, and surrogacy benefits, as well as an annual stipend for new additions to your families (including pets!).
- Lifestyle & Learning: You’ll have stipends to fund your personal lifestyle and to support your favorite creators on Patreon, as well as an annual stipend for learning and development.
- Hybrid Work: Our offices are in San Francisco, New York, and Porto. Plus, we have more teammates working remotely around the world.
- Financial Support: We offer employer matching for our retirement plans and Health Savings Account (HSA), as well as access to 1:1 financial guidance with a Certified Financial Planner.
Company HQ
SoMa, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Jack Conte
(Co-Founder & CEO)Graduated from Stanford with a degree in Music. Created musical content on Youtube as Pomplamoose before founding Patreon.
Sam Yam
(Co-Founder, CTO & President)Worked in Analytics and Engineering roles at Yahoo, Ning and Loopt. Previously founded mobile advertising company AdWhirl, which was acquired by Google.
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