[Remote] Staff Backend Engineer

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Bestow is a leading vertical technology platform serving some of the largest and most innovative life insurers. As a Staff Backend Engineer, you will own the technical architecture for IPC services and design, build, and operate backend services, while mentoring other engineers and ensuring production reliability.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical architecture for IPC services, making design decisions that balance speed of delivery with long-term maintainability
• Design, build, and operate backend services using Python + PostgreSQL, Go, and a Java-based Drools rules engine
• Lead cross-team technical initiatives — coordinate with other Bestow engineering teams to plan and execute integration work across the platform
• Drive platform capabilities that scale with Bestow's growing partner ecosystem — new carrier onboardings, product launches, and configuration flexibility
• Mentor engineers on the team through code review, design review, and pairing — raise the technical bar without bottlenecking delivery
• Ensure production reliability: define SLOs, improve observability, and share on-call responsibility for IPC workloads
• Use agentic AI coding tools as a core part of your workflow and help the team adopt effective AI-assisted development practices
• Communicate technical decisions, trade-offs, and status clearly in writing — the team is remote-first and async-heavy

Skills

• 8+ years of professional backend software development experience; you've operated at the Staff or Senior level before
• Strong proficiency in Go and Python; Java experience is a plus
• Deep experience with distributed systems, microservices, and API design (Protocol Buffers, OpenAPI)
• Comfortable with PostgreSQL or other relational databases at scale
• Hands-on with cloud infrastructure — Kubernetes, Docker, GCP (or equivalent)
• Proven track record building, deploying, and troubleshooting production services end-to-end
• You seek out problems before they find you — proactively identifying risks, proposing solutions, and driving them to completion
• You write maintainable, well-tested software and hold yourself and your peers to a high quality bar
• Demonstrated experience with agentic AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) integrated into your daily workflow — not occasional use, but a deliberate practice

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity based on role
• Policies and managers that support work/life balance, like our flexible paid time off and parental leave programs
• 100% paid-premium option for medical, dental, and vision insurance
• Lifestyle stipend to support your physical, emotional, and financial wellbeing
• Flexible work-from-home policy and open to remote
• Remote and WFH options, as well as a beautiful, state-of-the-art office in Dallas’ Deep Ellum, for those who prefer an office setting
• Employee-led diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives

Company Overview