Staff Software Engineer, Backend

About this role

<p><strong>About Genius AI</strong></p> <p>Genius AI is building technology to help local businesses run themselves. Genius AI products do the admin work that keeps practitioners from the work they love and the people they serve. From GlossGenius to Reception, its products work 24/7 on busywork like booking, marketing, client management, finances, staff and inventory management, and more.</p> <p>Genius AI technology has saved businesses 106M in admin hours, earned them $2.0B in additional revenue, and facilitated more than 624M client touch points.</p> <p><strong>About the Role</strong></p> <p>Genius AI is building 0-to-1 AI products we expect to be a massive revenue driver, and this role sits at the center of that build. As a Staff Backend Engineer, you'll be the technical anchor for our highest-innovation teams: setting architectural direction, validating options through proof-of-concepts, and turning ambitious initiatives into clear, buildable roadmaps. This is an IC role with real leadership weight, roughly 60% architecture, planning, and technical direction, 40% hands-on building. The person in this role will be a force multiplier: unblocking engineers before they know they're stuck, making the hardest technical calls so the team doesn't lose momentum, and setting a new standard for what great backend engineering looks like at Genius AI. You won't be maintaining systems someone else designed, you'll be raising the ceiling on what this team can build, and doing it in a way that makes everyone around you better in the process.</p> <p>You must be commutable to our NYC headquarters and will operate in a hybrid environment. We default to being in-office 3–4 days per week with required attendance on Tuesdays and Thursdays.</p> <p><strong>What You'll Do</strong></p> <ul> <li>Architect and own the technical direction of AI-powered products and 0-to-1 builds, weighing long-term trade-offs with precision and keeping a healthy backlog of forward-looking, build-ready work</li> <li>Integrate AI models and LLMs into customer-facing products, not as experiments, but as production systems with real reliability and performance requirements</li> <li>Shape how Genius AI builds with AI, your architectural decisions will define what's possible across the product for years</li> <li>Write high-quality code and rapidly ship proof-of-concepts to validate architectural options and tackle the team's hardest technical challenges before they become blockers</li> <li>Partner with Product, Design, and Engineering leadership to translate ambiguous business goals into well-architected initiatives with clear sequencing and minimal rework</li> <li>Proactively identify and resolve systemic technical debt before it slows the team down, unblock engineers, raise the quality bar, and make the people around you disproportionately more effective</li> </ul> <p><strong>What We're Looking For</strong></p> <ul> <li>7+ years of professional engineering experience with a strong backend focus, and a track record of owning system design and architectural choices for high-scale or high-growth products</li> <li>Already building with AI as a structural part of how you work, you've integrated LLMs into production systems, used AI tooling to accelerate your development workflow, and have a sharp point of view on where AI changes what's architecturally possible</li> <li>Ship fast and course-correct, you're comfortable making architectural calls with incomplete information, iterating rapidly in production, and treating ambiguity as a feature of early-stage work, not a reason to slow down</li> <li>Deep Kotlin expertise with strong intuitions about backend architecture, service design, and performance at scale (TypeScript experience is a plus)</li> <li>Solid command of modern cloud infrastructure: AWS and Kubernetes, at the level of someone who can navigate it confidently without being a pure infra specialist</li> <li>Natural collaborator who can align PMs, designers, and engineering teams around a shared technical vision and keep execution moving without friction</li> <li>Exceptional communicator who can make complex architectural trade-offs legible to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders</li> </ul> <p><strong>Benefits &amp; Perks&nbsp;</strong></p> <ul> <li>Competitive health &amp; dental insurance options, effective on your first day of employment</li> <li>Flexible PTO</li> <li>In-office lunch twice per week for NYC and SF employees, plus late night dinner stipends</li> <li>Access to Wellhub, a corporate wellness platform with discounted gym memberships, fitness classes, and mental health resources</li> <li>Annual stipend for professional development and continued learning</li> <li>High performers at 5 years receive a generous stipend to use however you recharge best</li> <li>401k benefit: employees are eligible to contribute starting day 1 of employment</li> <li>Dependent Care FSA</li> <li>Paid parental leave</li> <li>Fertility and adoption benefits via Carrot and Kindbody</li> </ul> <p><em>The starting base salary for this role in New York is between <span data-sheets-value="{"1":2,"2":"$145,600-$207,500"}" data-sheets-userformat="{"2":12861,"3":{"1":0},"5":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":{"1":2,"2":0}},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"6":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":{"1":2,"2":0}},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"7":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":{"1":2,"2":0}},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"8":{"1":[{"1":2,"2":0,"5":{"1":2,"2":0}},{"1":0,"2":0,"3":3},{"1":1,"2":0,"4":1}]},"12":0,"15":"Nunito Sans","16":10}">$241,000-$284,000</span>+ target equity + benefits. The base salary offered is dependent upon many factors including skills, experience, location, and education. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future. </em><em>Additionally, this role is currently eligible to participate in Genius AI's equity plan as well as a range of health &amp; wellbeing, retirement savings, and other benefi