Senior Product Engineer (Backend), Buffer
Content Creation Team
$156.5-202.3k
Offering Equity and Profit Sharing
MongoDB
TypeScript
GraphQL
Node.js
Senior and Expert level
Remote from Canada, Europe, US
Social media management platform
Posted today
Social media management platform
21-100 employees
B2CB2BSocial Media
Posted today
$156.5-202.3k
Offering Equity and Profit Sharing
MongoDB
TypeScript
GraphQL
Node.js
Senior and Expert level
Remote from Canada, Europe, US
21-100 employees
B2CB2BSocial Media
Company mission
To provide essential tools to help small businesses get off the ground and grow. Through exceptional customer service and uplifting content, helping businesses believe they can succeed and do good along the way.
Role
Who you are
- You have deep experience with modern stack — we use Node.js, TypeScript, GraphQL and MongoDB
- You’ve led backend projects from start to finish — shaping architecture, guiding trade-offs, and delivering reliable systems that support real-world product needs
- You’re comfortable designing APIs, modeling data structures, and thinking about the performance and reliability of the full stack — not just in theory, but in day-to-day product work
- You comfortable building both online and offline systems, and have a keen grasp on appropriate architectures for building products involving large amounts of data
- You have strong systems thinking. You look beyond the immediate task, anticipate downstream effects, and help teams converge on architecture that supports the long game
- You’ve worked across teams to drive platform or infrastructure improvements — whether simplifying service boundaries, improving observability, or evolving internal tooling
- You’ve contributed to collaborative or multi-user product features, and you understand the data, consistency, and UX considerations that come with them
- You’re fluent with modern AI tools — not just using them for code generation, but integrating them into how you debug, document, explore ideas, and reduce manual effort
- You care about performance, scale, and clean abstractions — and know how to measure, prioritize, and improve them pragmatically
- You’ve influenced engineering culture through code reviews, mentoring, or leading by example — and you’re comfortable being a resource for others on architectural decisions
- You have a personal stake in the world of content creation, maybe you’ve run a newsletter, built an audience on social media, or regularly share your own work online. You’ve used Buffer before and care about the experience of planning, creating, and publishing content
- You thrive in remote, async environments. You’re clear in your thinking, generous with context, and don’t wait for perfect information to get started
- You’ve likely been doing this for 7+ years, but experience depth and impact matter more to us than a specific number
What the job involves
- You’ll take the lead on building and evolving the systems behind how creators write, edit, and manage content — including AI-powered features, real-time collaboration, recommendation engine and the backend infrastructure that supports a fast, flexible, and reliable content creation experience
- Lead the development of the backend systems for our core content creation tools. This includes APIs for scheduling logic and content creation, offline data pipelines for recommender systems, and new AI-powered workflows
- Improve and evolve our internal platform — helping consolidate services into a monorepo, improve tooling and observability, and reduce complexity across the board
- Collaborate closely with engineers, product, and design to scope work, explore trade-offs, and find the simplest path to something great
- We’re looking for someone who enjoys going deep — designing data models, shaping APIs, improving performance, and helping our systems scale with clarity and confidence. You’ll work closely with product, design, and frontend engineers to bring ideas to life and keep the editing experience smooth and resilient
- We work iteratively and in tight feedback loops, balancing thoughtful engineering with steady momentum. You’ll help us strengthen our internal platform, making it faster, more scalable, and better equipped to power content creation at scale. There’s real room here to shape this direction and make an impact
- Make steady improvements to performance, reliability, and data modeling, helping us scale quality over time
- Take shared ownership of product quality and system health. You'll participate in our on-call rotation — all engineers take a 24/7 week-long shift roughly once a quarter. You'll also contribute to the ongoing work that keeps our systems running smoothly and continuously improving, like fixing bugs, addressing security vulnerabilities, and other improvements
- Contribute to shaping our engineering culture by sharing knowledge, reviewing code, and leading by example
Application process
- Application. When submitting your application and resume, tell us why you want to join Buffer and take your time. This is your chance to make a strong first impression
- Hiring manager interview. Chat with the hiring manager for your role to understand what it takes to work at Buffer. This is an opportunity for both sides to get to know each other and determine whether our expectations align
- Code review assignment. We'll send you 30-minute asynchronous assignment to review a pull request, to help us understand how you think about code and communicate technical ideas
- Technical interviews. Interview with a couple of engineers from Buffer focused on your technical experience and approach. Additionally, for senior+ roles, we'll have an additional conversation about your leadership, how you work with teams, and how you approach the broader challenges that come with this level
- Collaboration period. This is experimental stage for us where you would work with us on a real project over a few days (fully paid, with flexible timing). The goal is to see how it feels to work in the team, both for us and for you. You'll meet a few bufferoos, we'll kickoff the project, and invite you to a Slack and you'll collaborate with the team on it
- Meet the CEO. At the very end, you will have the opportunity to meet with Joel Gascoigne, our CEO. This is a great chance for you to gain a deeper understanding of Buffer's strategy, values, and work processes
- Offer. We wrap it up with an offer and discuss the final details. We would align on the last bits before we make you part of the Buffer team 💛
Our take
Buffer is a social media management platform helping businesses and individuals drive meaningful engagement on their social media accounts. With a suite of products designed for publishing, engagement, analytics, and team collaboration, Buffer is integrated with some of the biggest social media channels, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok.
It acts as an all-in-one stop for social media planning, scheduling and managing, and when comparing the platform to its competitors, Buffer claims to offer the most value for money, making it the perfect platform for creators of all sizes looking to manage their social media and grow their audience without draining their time.
Buffer is a private and independent company that's now been operating for over 14 years. True to their philosophy of doing things a little differently, Buffer has been remote since its early years, it also intentionally maintains a small team of around 75 employees, publishes all employee salaries publicly, and operates on a four-day work week.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
15% employee growth in 12 months
Glassdoor (4.2)
Trustpilot (2)
Company
Funding (2 rounds)
Oct 2014
$3.5m
SERIES A
Dec 2011
$0.4m
ANGEL
Total funding: $3.9m
Company benefits
- Work remotely: Live and work wherever you like!
- 4-Day workweeks: Our schedule is four workdays, with a flexible, meeting-free fifth day for overflow tasks or personal time as you see fit
- Health insurance: We offer health insurance for all of our team members, international or US
- Home office setup: Get a laptop + $500 to set up your home office!
- 'Growth mindset' fund: Extra money for learning and development
- Minimum vacation: At least 3 weeks/year!
- Profit sharing: When the company does well, all team members share the profits!
- Family leave: 16 weeks of family leave for all parents, fully paid
- Retreats: When we can, we meet in person for company get-togethers
- Working smarter stipend: Get some extra cash for a co-working space or a coffee shop work
- Free books and Kindle: Get a free Kindle and all the free books - digital, physical, and audio - you like, anytime
- Sabbaticals: Take a 6-week break, fully paid, after every 5 years with Buffer
- 401(k): With 3% company match 🇺🇸
Company values
- Default to transparency
- Improve consistently
- Be a no-ego doer
- Show gratitude
- Choose optimism
- Reflect to unblock
Company HQ
Pacific Heights, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Joel Gascoigne
(CEO)Graduated from the University of Warwick with a Masters of Engineering and Computing Science.
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