{"id":15703,"url":"https://alion.io/job/siftstack-staff-backend-engineer","title":"Staff Backend Engineer","company":{"id":4821,"name":"Sift","domain":"siftstack.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/siftstack","size_band":"501-1000","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":82,"open_postings":7,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.714,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":56,"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Backend","role_family":"Backend","seniority":"staff","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":200000,"max":260000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":260000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":7,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"ArgoCD","optional":false},{"name":"Go","optional":false},{"name":"gRPC","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":false},{"name":"Linux","optional":false},{"name":"Prometheus","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"Rest API","optional":false},{"name":"Rust","optional":false},{"name":"SQL","optional":false},{"name":"Apache Kafka","optional":true},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Datadog","optional":true},{"name":"Docker","optional":true},{"name":"Flink","optional":true},{"name":"GitHub Actions","optional":true},{"name":"Grafana","optional":true},{"name":"JavaScript","optional":true},{"name":"PostgreSQL","optional":true},{"name":"React.js","optional":true},{"name":"Time Series Forecasting","optional":true},{"name":"TimescaleDB","optional":true},{"name":"TypeScript","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2025-10-27T16:16:00Z","employer_posted_date":"2025-10-27","last_verified_at":"2026-10-16T16:27:56Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":354,"trust":{"level":"stale","repost_count":0,"flags":["stale"],"days_open":353},"description":"About Sift\nSift is the data infrastructure platform for hardware engineering teams. Sift turns high-frequency telemetry into engineering insights for mission-critical systems. Teams use Sift to build and operate rockets, satellites, autonomous vehicles, energy systems, defense platforms, and more.\nFounded by former SpaceX engineers who built the tools behind Dragon and Starlink, Sift is building the data infrastructure to herald the AI era for physical systems.\nIn This Role, You'll:\nDesign, build, and operate backend systems that process and store large volumes of real-time telemetry data.\n\nOwn features end-to-end, from design to post-launch improvement.\n\nCollaborate with Frontend, Design, and Data teams to ensure features solve real customer problems.\n\nOptimize backend systems for performance, scalability, and reliability.\n\nContribute to system evolution-migrating services, introducing caches, and improving storage or indexing layers.\n\nParticipate in on-call rotations, debugging live issues, and improving observability.\n\nRaise the bar through code reviews, shared patterns, and mentorship.\n\nThe Skillset You'll Bring:\nBachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics, or another STEM discipline\n\n7+ years of experience in backend or infrastructure roles.\n\nStrong understanding of distributed systems fundamentals-state, fault tolerance, recovery.\n\nExperience with Go, Rust, or Python, and strong Linux/networking fundamentals.\n\nDeep knowledge of SQL and operational database experience (indexing, migrations, tuning).\n\nExperience building and scaling APIs (REST, gRPC/Protobuf).\n\nStrong debugging skills and a production-first mindset.\n\nFamiliarity with Kubernetes, Prometheus, Argo CD, and other modern infrastructure tools.\nBonus Points:\nExperience with streaming or time-series data systems (Kafka, Flink, TimescaleDB, etc.).\n\nExperience with performance tuning and profiling at query or service layers.\n\nFamiliarity with observability tools (Datadog, Grafana).\n\nBackground in hardware or telemetry-heavy environments.\n\nEngineering at SIFT:\nYou’ll join a tight-knit team of world-class engineers building foundational systems for next-gen machines. Technologies you'll work with may include:\nFrontend & Backend: Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Protobuf, React, TypeScript\n\nData Infrastructure: Apache Arrow, DataFusion, Flink, Kafka, Parquet, Rust\n\nOps & Tooling: AWS, Kubernetes, Docker, GitHub Actions, Prometheus, Argo CD, Grafana, Linux\n\nLocation:\nSift’s headquarters is in Marina Del Rey, CA (Next to LAX). We collaborate in person twice a week-on Mondays and Thursdays -and come together for a full week every two months. We are open to relocating candidates to LA or working from our San Francisco office for the right candidate.\nSalary range: $200,000 - $260,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.\nEligibility:\nU.S. Person Required: Must be a U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or protected individual such as an asylee or refugee in compliance with ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations) / EAR (Export Administration Regulations) regulations.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3089,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":7,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"United States","iso":"US","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Observability & APM","Manufacturing & Industrial Software","Stream Processing & Real-Time Data"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2025-10-27T16:16:00Z"},{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T23:57:34Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"Filed H-1B visas in the last two years","filings_12m":0,"filings_prev_12m":1,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":null,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-15T11:24:14+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":16,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.568,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":353,"expected_fill_days":56,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-16T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":260000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/siftstack-staff-backend-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/siftstack-staff-backend-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-16T17:34:05Z","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":2141,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-17T00:00:00Z"}},"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":4821},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4821"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fsiftstack-staff-backend-engineer"},{"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%2Fsiftstack-staff-backend-engineer"},{"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%2Fsiftstack-staff-backend-engineer"},{"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/siftstack-staff-backend-engineer\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fsiftstack-staff-backend-engineer"}]}