{"id":2965118,"url":"https://alion.io/job/seesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture","title":"Senior Backend Engineer - Data Systems & Architecture","company":{"id":41557,"name":"Seesaw","domain":"seesaw.social","url":"https://alion.io/company/seesaw-social","size_band":null,"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":"senior","employment_type":"contractor","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Mexico City, Mexico","Mexico"],"countries":["MX"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":52000,"max_usd":104000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_remote_cell","sample_n":9},"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AWS","optional":false},{"name":"DynamoDB","optional":false},{"name":"ElasticSearch","optional":false},{"name":"OpenSearch","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Amazon S3","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-20T20:57:55Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-21","last_verified_at":"2026-10-27T12:20:20Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":6,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":6},"description":"Own critical data architecture decisions in a dedicated, director-led engineering team shaping Seesaw's technology foundation.\nABOUT SEESAW\nSeesaw helps elementary educators deliver joyful, inclusive learning experiences through interactive instruction, digital portfolios, and connections between teachers, students, and families. Our mission is to provide every elementary student with joyful and connected learning experiences that lay the foundation for success in life.\nYOUR TEAM\nYou will join a small, dedicated group of senior engineers assembled specifically for one of Seesaw's most critical technology initiatives. This is not a business-as-usual maintenance assignment: the team has a focused mandate to make consequential improvements to the foundations of our production platform. The group reports directly to our Director of Platforms, who will serve as the team's engineering manager and lead the work day to day. Working closely with experienced Core Platform engineers, you'll have meaningful technical ownership, direct access to engineering leadership, and the opportunity to shape systems that support millions of educators, students, and families. Our emphasis is on thoughtful architecture, hands-on execution, and incremental delivery without compromising security or reliability.\nYOUR ROLE\nWe're looking for a senior backend engineer with exceptional data modeling instincts and experience evolving data-intensive production software. You'll assess data access patterns and persistence tradeoffs, design maintainable solutions, and deliver carefully validated changes. This is a hands-on role for someone who enjoys both deep technical design and taking complex work safely into production.\nYOUR RESPONSIBILITIES\nDesign and improve data models, access patterns, schemas, and data contracts for critical backend services.\nEvaluate data store approaches, including NoSQL, search, and relational options, in the context of application needs, performance, and operational complexity.\nBuild reliable data evolution tooling, including schema changes, backfills, reindexing, reconciliation, validation, and safe rollback where appropriate.\nImprove correctness, consistency, throughput, and observability of high-volume data workflows, including multi-region replication and search index synchronization.\nPartner with application, infrastructure, and data engineers on data lifecycle, data classification, resilience, backup/restore, and production readiness.\nLead technical investigations, document tradeoffs, write production code, and support staged releases.\nWHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR\n8+ years of professional backend engineering experience with deep ownership of complex production data systems; equivalent demonstrated experience considered.\nStrong Python skills and experience developing production services on AWS or a comparable cloud platform.\nStrong NoSQL and relational fundamentals, including DynamoDB access-pattern design, relational schema design, indexing, transactions, and query optimization.\nProduction experience with Elasticsearch, OpenSearch, or a comparable search system used as a primary application query path.\nHands-on experience with schema evolution, large-scale data changes, automated verification, and operational rollbacks.\nAbility to balance long-term architectural quality with incremental delivery in a live SaaS system.\nStrong independent delivery, clear communication, and comfort owning consequential work in a small, director-led engineering team.\nNICE TO HAVE\nHands-on experience with DynamoDB global tables, DynamoDB Streams, or comparable multi-region replication.\nExperience with CDC, event-driven processing, high-throughput applications, or online data migrations.\nExperience optimizing data infrastructure reliability, performance, or cloud cost.\nExperience with large-scale object storage (S3) lifecycle, reference tracking, or bulk copy/replication of binary assets.\nExperience with PostgreSQL or other relational production data stores.\nWHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE\nCritical data workflows are easier to understand and operate; important architectural decisions are supported by evidence; and substantial production changes, including moving data between environments, are shipped safely with measurable correctness and rollback safeguards.\nCONTRACT ENGAGEMENT\nThis is a senior, hands-on individual-contributor contract opportunity with a dedicated team led by the Director of Platforms. Engagement duration, location/working arrangement, and commercial terms will be discussed during recruiting.\nA note on language: Our team collaborates daily with US-based colleagues in English, so please submit your resume and application materials in English. We’re unable to review applications submitted in other languages.\nSeesaw values diverse perspectives and welcomes qualified candidates from all backgrounds. We aim to build inclusive teams that reflect the educators, students, and families we serve.\nOur company participates in E-Verify.","description_format":"text","description_chars":4996,"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":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":true}]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Social Networks"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-20T23:55:14Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":6,"expected_fill_days":50,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/seesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/seesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-27T14:14:15Z","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":2653,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-28T00:00:00Z"}},"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":41557},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=41557"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fseesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture"},{"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%2Fseesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture"},{"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%2Fseesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture"},{"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/seesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fseesaw-senior-backend-engineer-data-systems-architecture"}]}