{"id":833490,"url":"https://alion.io/job/kira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2","title":"Senior Software Engineer (Backend, Infrastructure Focus)","company":{"id":689795,"name":"Kira Learning","domain":"kira-learning.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/kira-learning","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":3,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"senior","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":180000,"max":250000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":250000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"CI/CD","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"Kotlin","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"MySQL","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"React.js","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"Scala","optional":false},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":false},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-30T17:06:30Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-30","last_verified_at":"2026-11-04T06:44:01Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":96,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":96},"description":"Kira is a rapidly growing startup backed by top-tier Venture Capital funds including New Enterprise Associates (NEA), Andrew Ng’s AI Fund, and Primavera. We live in a world where technology is rapidly changing the educational experiences of students and teachers everywhere, and we have the opportunity to shape how this change takes place. It is Kira Learning ’s mission to harness transformative AI technologies to make world-class teaching and learning accessible to everyone.\nAs a Senior Software Engineer at Kira, you will own core backend systems and infrastructure that power critical product workflows. This role is ideal for engineers who enjoy building reliable, scalable services, improving infrastructure and developer tooling. While this is a backend-leaning role, the ideal candidate is comfortable going full-stack when needed, partnering closely with product teams to ship end-to-end features.\nThis is a full-time position that requires flexibility with work hours and availability outside of regular business hours. We have offices in San Francisco, CA and New York City, NY and we ask that employees work from one of the two locations and come into the office in-person 4 days a week.\nWhat You'll Do\nShip impactful, end-to-end features that improve student and teacher experiences\n\nHelp set and evolve technical direction, translating business goals into pragmatic technical plans\n\nImprove product and engineering foundations, including code quality, observability, CI/CD, and developer tooling\n\nOwn operational excellence, addressing performance, scalability, security, reliability, and incident response\n\nPartner closely with product managers and designers on UX, interaction design, and execution\n\nParticipate across the full lifecycle: prototyping, testing, rollout, and ongoing support\n\nProvide technical leadership through design discussions, code reviews, and mentorship\n\nWhat We're Looking For\nBachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, or equivalent technical experience\n\n8+ years of professional software engineering experience or equivalent practical experience\n\nStrong backend experience (e.g., Kotlin, Python, Go, Rust, Scala), with willingness to ramp up on Kira’s stack (Kotlin, Python)\n\nAbility to own technical decisions and execute with minimal guidance in ambiguous environments\n\nHands-on experience operating production systems and cloud infrastructure (ideally AWS)\n\nExperience designing APIs, working with relational databases (e.g., MySQL), and shipping complex systems\n\n2+ years experience mentoring and/or managing junior and mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and high-quality delivery\n\nFamiliarity with automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and reliable deployment practices\n\nClear written and verbal communication skills across technical and non-technical audiences\n\nComfort operating in a fast-paced, early-stage startup environment with changing priorities\n\nA positive, can-do attitude. You’re not deterred by minor setbacks and are able to swiftly overcome ambiguity\n\nImpeccable attention to detail\n\n(Preferred) Extensive experience contributing to frontend codebases (e.g., React, TypeScript)\n\n(Preferred) Experience with integrating LLM-backed services, including API usage, evaluation, and operational considerations\n\nWhat We Offer\nCompetitive compensation and equity. For applicants in the US, the salary range for this role is $180,000 - $250,000+, depending on relevant considerations like professional experience and related skill sets\n\nMedical, dental, vision and life insurance, including a medical insurance plan with 100% coverage of employee premiums.\n\nFlexible PTO policy and company holidays.\n\nDoorDash credit for lunch daily.\n\nWellhub Membership: 100% company-paid access to premium gym networks (Orangetheory, SoulCycle), 60+ wellness apps (Headspace, MyFitnessPal, Apple Fitness+), and 1:1 coaching sessions spanning fitness, mental health, nutrition, and sleep.\n\nDog friendly office .\n\n Equal Employment Opportunity Employer\nAt Kira, we are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Kira believes that diversity and inclusion among our employees are critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. Selection for employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.\n Background Check\nKira will make a conditional job offer in line with local, state and federal laws, and a subsequent criminal, education, and employment history background check will then be issued.","description_format":"text","description_chars":5061,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Continuous learning","Equity","Health insurance","Life insurance","Pet friendly"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["EdTech Platforms","Education AI"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-12T17:41:33Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 1","filings_12m":1,"filings_prev_12m":0,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":162500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-29T16:27:21+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":1}],"liveness":{"score":11,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.406,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":96,"expected_fill_days":36,"reasons":["conf:4","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-11-04T06:34:25Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":250000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/kira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/kira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-04T08:55:36Z","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":13887,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-05T00:00:00Z"}},"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":689795},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=689795"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fkira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2"},{"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%2Fkira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2"},{"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%2Fkira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2"},{"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/kira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fkira-learning-senior-software-engineer-backend-infrastructure-focus-2"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":833490}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"kira-learning.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":833490},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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