{"id":2057545,"url":"https://alion.io/job/gradial-staff-software-engineer-backend","title":"Staff Software Engineer, Backend","company":{"id":11210,"name":"Gradial","domain":"gradial.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/gradial","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":null},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Seattle, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":180000,"max":240000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":240000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"Agentic Workflows","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-07T22:58:41Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-12","last_verified_at":"2026-10-15T21:20:00Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":7,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":7},"description":"Gradial is building the AI-native system of work for enterprise marketing. Our agents turn ideas into live campaigns by executing across the tools, teams, and workflows enterprises already use-from content authoring and campaign assembly to quality assurance and brand compliance. We give marketers and creatives more time to shape brands, understand customers, and create work that moves people.\nWe’re tackling some of the hardest problems in applied AI: building agent harnesses, sandboxed execution environments, and orchestration that enable agents to plan, act, and verify their work reliably at enterprise scale. We’re growing rapidly, winning Fortune 500 and enterprise customers including AWS, T-Mobile, and Prudential. Our $65 million Series C led by Insight Partners is accelerating that momentum.\nJoin us to help define how people and AI agents work together. We move with urgency, reason from first principles, and take ownership from idea to customer impact. You’ll shape the product, own consequential problems, and build systems that some of the world’s leading brands depend on every day.\nThe Role\nGradial is looking for a Staff Software Engineer, Backend to take on some of the largest, most complex and ambiguous technical problems across our product. You’ll own critical systems from loosely defined problem through architecture and production, building the backend foundations that enable Gradial to deliver increasingly powerful AI-driven workflows.\nThis is a highly hands-on IC role. You’ll write production code, make consequential architectural decisions and create clarity where the path forward is not obvious. You’ll work closely with engineering, product and design to turn ambitious ideas into reliable systems while raising the technical bar across the engineering team.\nWhat You’ll Own\nLead large, complex technical projects from ambiguous problem definition through architecture, implementation and production\nArchitect and build backend systems that power AI-driven workflows, including real-time inference, tool orchestration and long-running processes\nDrive technical direction for critical systems with a focus on scalability, reliability, performance and long-term maintainability\nTurn loosely defined product and technical problems into clear plans, making pragmatic decisions and driving execution without requiring a predefined path\nBuild new systems from 0→1 while evolving existing architecture as our product, customers and engineering organization scale\nEstablish patterns and abstractions that simplify complex systems and make the broader engineering team more effective\nPartner closely with product and design to shape solutions, identify technical opportunities and make thoughtful tradeoffs\nRaise the engineering bar through technical leadership, architecture, code reviews and mentorship while remaining deeply involved in implementation\nOwn systems end to end, including testing, deployment, observability, reliability and ongoing operation in production\nWhat We Need\n8+ years of professional software engineering experience with significant experience building and operating backend systems\nProven ability to independently lead large, technically complex projects in fast-moving or ambiguous environments\nDeep technical expertise in software architecture, distributed systems, algorithms and system design\nTrack record of taking products or systems from 0→1 and making sound architectural decisions with incomplete information\nAbility to break down vague, high-variance problems into clear technical approaches and drive them through execution\nStrong product judgment and the ability to balance technical quality, speed and customer impact\nExperience designing systems for scalability, reliability, performance and maintainability in production\nStrong communication skills with the ability to influence technical decisions and align engineers and cross-functional partners\nHigh ownership mindset with a willingness to work across boundaries and own both the problem and the solution\nNice to Have\nExperience building products or infrastructure involving AI/ML systems, LLMs or agentic workflows\nExperience in high-growth or early-stage startups where technical scope and priorities change quickly\nProficiency with TypeScript or similar languages\nThe salary range for this position is$180,000 - $240,000 annually. Final compensation will be determined based on factors such as experience, skills, and qualifications.\nWhat we offer\nPerformance-based annual bonus\nMeaningful equity awards\nMedical, dental & vision (fully covered for employees with 75% for dependents)\nFertility & family-planning support\n401k plan\nUnlimited PTO\nA beautiful Seattle office with a gym, sauna, and bike parking\nFree lunch three days a week in our HQ\nA front-row seat to building category-defining AI infrastructure\nYou'll thrive here if you\nLearn quickly, actively seek out new challenges, and regularly reconsider “how it’s always been done.”\nWant to have real impact with zero bureaucracy.\nHave an innate drive for being 1% better than the day before, building towards greatness.\nEmbrace AI as a core tool for problem-solving, innovation, and scale.\nShow customer-obsession (internal or external), high ownership/accountability, and bias for action.\nCommunicate clearly, directly, with curiosity, and assuming good intentions.\nThrive in fast-paced, hyper-growth environments where building better > maintaining status quo.\nAI Literacy & Interviewing Tools\nAs an AI-first company, we prioritize AI literacy as a core competency in our hiring decisions. We’re excited by candidates who thoughtfully apply AI tools in their work, but during interviews we’re focused on you. This is your opportunity to show how you think, communicate, and solve problems. Over-reliance on AI-generated responses during the interview process (especially when it obscures your own voice) will result in disqualification. We want to understand your unique perspective and how you approach challenges, both with and without AI.\nGradial is dedicated to creating an environment where diverse perspectives are valued and all team members can grow. We offer competitive compensation, equity, flexible work hours, comprehensive benefits, and a collaborative culture focused on learning and impact.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6298,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["401k plan","Equity","Flexible schedule","Unlimited PTO"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Marketing Automation","AI Agents","Marketing & Sales AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-08T00:31:50Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":7,"expected_fill_days":70,"reasons":["conf:3","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-15T05:46:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":240000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/gradial-staff-software-engineer-backend","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/gradial-staff-software-engineer-backend.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-15T22:02:28Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":33491,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-16T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":11210},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=11210"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fgradial-staff-software-engineer-backend"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fgradial-staff-software-engineer-backend"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fgradial-staff-software-engineer-backend"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/gradial-staff-software-engineer-backend\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fgradial-staff-software-engineer-backend"}]}