Senior Software Engineer, Wag
Backend
More information about location
5 days a week in office
Platform for finding local pet caregivers
Be an early applicant
Platform for finding local pet caregivers
1001+ employees
Be an early applicant
More information about location
5 days a week in office
1001+ employees
Company mission
To keep pets and their owners happy, healthy, and safe.
Role
Who you are
- Significant experience building and operating scalable backend systems in production
- Demonstrated experience building software with AI coding agents such as Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex. Be prepared to discuss specifics: features you shipped with agent assistance, the workflows or tooling you built to make agents effective on a large codebase, and where you decided not to rely on them
- Proficiency in PHP, ideally Laravel, and working proficiency in Python
- Experience with event-driven and queue-based architectures, particularly AWS SQS
- Experience running containerized services in production, ideally on ECS
- Ability to work in-person 5x a week in our downtown Miami office
Desirable
- Familiarity with secrets management in tools such as HashiCorp Vault or AWS Parameter Store
- Experience with large-scale static analysis and automated refactoring, such as PHPStan, Rector, or similar
- Proficiency in maintaining and deploying systems with tools such as Terraform, Docker, and GitLab CI/CD
- Strong knowledge of database design and performance optimization, especially MySQL and Redis
- Experience integrating LLMs into production software, including prompt design, evaluation, and handling non-deterministic output safely
- A pragmatic, agnostic coding approach with a strong understanding of when to apply certain design patterns, drawn from extensive experience with large projects
- Understanding of secure design principles for backend systems
- Solid understanding of site reliability engineering, monitoring, and incident management
- Excellent communication skills with the ability to work effectively across a distributed team
What the job involves
- We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our backend engineering team and help develop products for millions of pets and the humans who love them
- This position involves enhancing our core backend API, as well as supporting our cloud infrastructure and associated backend services
- We are looking for someone who thrives in a small, fast-paced team environment, and is comfortable working across the stack to solve challenging problems and create exceptional products
- We build with AI coding agents every day
- Demonstrated experience building both workflows and products with AI tools is a requirement for this role
- Take ownership of the backend platform, from the client-facing API schema to the server and database infrastructure in AWS
- Contribute to architectural and design decisions, and explain the tradeoffs
- Break down features into releasable components, estimate release schedules, and collaborate with the team
- Design and implement core products within our PHP and Laravel API, working from an OpenAPI specification in a domain-driven, service and repository architecture
- Build and enhance internal backend systems in Python, including our AWS Lambda services, and collaborate with other business units
- Support the production infrastructure by implementing and maintaining AWS services using Terraform, including ECS, Lambda, API Gateway, SQS, Parameter Store, CloudWatch, and IAM
- Participate in production monitoring and incident response, designing the necessary tools and processes
- Integrate AI-powered solutions directly into the product
- Build and improve the agent workflows, context, and tooling that let the team develop effectively with AI in a large codebase
Our take
Over 60 million households in the US own at least one dog, and often run into difficulty when looking for reliable and trustworthy people to help take care of their pet when on holiday, away for work, or if a helping hand is needed. Wag aims to meet this need by providing walking and boarding services on-demand.
The company connects dog owners with independent contractors - giving them alternatives to traditional kennels, or having to rely on friends or family. With more people turning to the internet for this type of service, Wag has access to a national market of dog-owners, though it does have a few rivals including the fast-growing "Rover".
After investing in attaining market share, the company has focussed on reaching profitability. A partnership with hotel brand Kimpton has helped to bring Wag's services nationwide, facilitating further growth, and it continues to launch new features such as its Premium Benefits Center.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
-1% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 5 rounds)
Feb 2018
$300m
LATE VC
Apr 2017
$40m
LATE VC
Total funding: $361.5m
Company benefits
- Company equity
- Work from home opportunities
- Premium medical, dental, and vision insurance plans
- One Medical membership where it’s available
- Free access to licensed therapists for all employees
- In addition to observed holidays, salaried employees are offered unlimited paid vacation
- Our full-time, hourly employees get generous paid and sick time off
- 401(k) plan
- Free snacks and drinks in all of our offices, including healthy options
Company HQ
Telegraph Hill, San Francisco, CA
Leadership
Jason Meltzer
(Chief Dog Officer)Started their career in Sales and Account Management, before co-founding Wag Labs. Was the initial CEO of the company, then founded Paway as CEO in 2020. Now Head of Growth and Operations at Mentorcam.
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