Staff Backend Product Engineer

Only the best engineers are being built here.

At Productboard, we are defining AI-first Product Engineering. Not as a one-time achievement, but as a baseline we raise every time we reach it. We remove every bottleneck as it surfaces and rebuild how product teams work from first principles, not just adding AI to existing workflows.

AI tools are everywhere now. Agents can write code. That’s today’s baseline.What we're building is the environment where the baseline makes you better: focused on outcomes, writing specs that agents build from, leveling up with every feature you ship.

We are defining what AI-native product development becomes. We're all in.

What you will build

You'd lead the architectural work that makes our codebase AI-native. Specifically:

• Agent-native architecture standards. Clear API contracts, semantic naming, well-defined module boundaries. The patterns that keep AI effective as our systems grow.
• A context infrastructure layer. Repo-versioned guidance that AI tools load automatically - improving the output of Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex simultaneously.
• Self-healing workflows for incidents. Agents that triage alerts, pull logs, surface relevant history, suggest remediation. Humans intervene where judgment matters.
• Agent workflows that go beyond chat. Multi-step reasoning, tool use, autonomous task execution with human-gated checkpoints - for product features, not internal demos.
• Systematic optimization of AI code review. Earlier detection of correctness, security, and maintainability issues, with the noise filtered out before it reaches a human reviewer.

The opportunity

The first shift in our teams has already happened: agents write code. That’s the baseline everywhere. Now we’re building an AI-first Product Engineering organization where learning matters as much as shipping.

Only a few companies build a product that makes them better. What we’re building next is a single place where work lives. Specs, plans, and full product context live in Productboard. There’s a seamless loop between Spark, our AI agent, and the coding agents. Engineers can steer from anywhere and focus on directing the work instead of typing it all out.

Our own teams run on Productboard and Spark, so the feedback loop isn't a survey next quarter. It's the next conversation you overhear.

Imagine you ship a feature before lunch and by the afternoon, half the floor is working with it. Not in a demo, not on a roadmap slide: in our real work, minutes after you merged.

We feel the gaps our customers feel, and we close them first. Every feature goes straight to real product teams solving real problems, starting with ours.

We are looking for a Staff Backend Engineer who wants to build this from the inside.

Why this matters for your career

Engineers own more. Not just the code: the outcome it drives.

You won't just use AI tools. You will shape the architecture that makes agents effective, define the workflows that make them reliable, and build the evaluation systems that make them trustworthy.

This is where you become a pure product engineer. Someone who owns the problem, the trade-offs, and the result, not just the implementation. Every maker has an orchestra. The craft is knowing what it should play. And we never outsource our thinking.

The skills you build here (designing codebases agents can work in confidently, writing specs that carry your judgment into every build, building evaluations that catch what AI misses) will define senior engineering for the next decade. What you learn here doesn't just make you faster today. It makes you more valuable for years to come.

What you will do

We're hiring a Staff Backend Engineer to own the architectural layer that makes this real, working alongside our engineers, PMs, and designers shipping AI-first product features end-to-end. You'd ship code, set technical direction, and shape decisions about what's worth building. Your north star here will be: get from idea to validated learning twice as fast.

About you

• 6-10+ years of production software engineering experience
• Strong backend skills in Python, Kotlin, or Java, with experience evolving service-level logic and infrastructure
• Hands-on LLM experience in real products: prompt design, context management, evaluation, real understanding of trade-offs (hallucinations, latency, cost, reliability)
• Comfort with distributed systems and event-driven architectures (queues, async processing, service-to-service communication)
• Daily use of AI coding tools as a core part of your workflow - pushing them, refining prompts, knowing where they break
• Strong fit: Former founding engineer or founder. A 0-to-1 engineer who turns business insights into prototypes to validate ideas quickly. Someone who's built agentic systems in production, or done deep work with multi-step LLM workflows (tool use, memory, orchestration).

Our tech stack

• AI layer: Python, Pydantic AI, Braintrust
• Frontend: TypeScript, React, Relay, GraphQL
• Backend: Kotlin, Ruby (legacy services we're modernizing), with new services built in Kotlin
• Storage: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Elastic, Redis
• Data pipeline: Python, Keboola, Looker, Snowflake
• Infrastructure: AWS, Cloudflare, Kubernetes, Terraform

Our Compensation

Salary range: 2,295,000-3,305,000 CZK annually

• Where most of our L4s sit:
  • Q1 (2.3M-2.55M) · 33%
  • Q2 (2.55M-2.8M) · 27%
  • Q3 (2.8M-3.05M) · 33%
  • Q4 (3.05M-3.3M) · 7%

Our benefits include

• Stock options
• MacBook + 34″ monitor
• Work from home stipend to support your home office setup
• 5 weeks of vacation + 9 sick days
• Flexible working hours and home office
• Budget for online courses, books, and conferences
• 2 weeks of fully paid parental leave
• Fertility & Family-Building Support with Carrot
• Mental Wellness Program with Soulmio to support your well-being and self-care
• 1 Volunteer Day per year to support causes close to your heart, plus donation matching from Productboard
• Free snacks, drinks, and yummy catered lunches from White Circus at the office every day
• Free MultiSport card
• On-site bouldering wall, boxing bag, and workout mats
• Team events, such as happy hours, off-sites, and retreats
• Free year-round access to Prague Zoo

Relocation Opportunities

If joining us means making a move, we're here to help make that transition easier.

Candidates must have the legal right to work in the EU. While we are unable to provide visa sponsorship for this role, we're happy to support relocation to Prague for candidates already authorized to work in the EU.

Relocation Support

We offer a one-time relocation bonus ranging from $6,000 to $13,000 USD, depending on your personal situation, whether you're moving on your own or with a partner or family.

This bonus is intended to help offset moving expenses and support your transition into your new city. While it may not cover every cost, it provides meaningful financial support as you get settled.

If you're thinking about relocating and want to explore what this could look like for you, we'd be happy to have that conversation.

About Productboard

Productboard is the leading intelligent product management platform, used by 6,000+ companies including Salesforce, SAP, Autodesk, and Kroger. Headquartered in San Francisco, with engineering hubs in Prague and Brno. Backed by Index Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, Bessemer, Tiger Global, and Dragoneer.

We've spent the last decade building the foundation for how product teams work. We're now in our 0-to-1 moment again, building Productboard Spark - the AI-first, agentic experience that turns raw feedback and signals into clear problems, strong specs, and faster execution. Spark is what powers everything you'd be working on.

Are you building with us?

If the work above is what you want to spend the next chapter of your career on, apply below!

Equal Opportunity

Productboard is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to an inclusive hiring process and consider all qualified applicants without discrimination based on characteristics protected by applicable law. If you require an accommodation during the hiring process, please contact [email protected].

By applying you agree to Productboard's Global Candidate Privacy Policy