Seeking a backend engineer to build and maintain scalable communication systems, optimize APIs, and collaborate closely with leadership to architect solutions.
Glue is not just another team chat app. We're building the first platform for agentic team chat—a workspace where AI agents and humans collaborate as peers. Our platform supports leading AI models (GPT-5, Claude, Gemini, and open-source alternatives) and integrates with thousands of apps through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), enabling teams to direct actions across their entire tech stack without leaving chat.
We recently raised $20M in Series A funding. Co-founded by David Sacks and Evan Owen, Glue is redefining how teams communicate and get work done in the AI era.
We’re looking for a backend engineer to join our small team and help lead the effort to prepare the product for launch. Our technical foundation -- Golang, GraphQL API, PostgreSQL -- is simple, straightforward, and battle-tested. You’ll be working closely with the CEO/CTO and the rest of the Glue team to make early decisions and help set the direction of the service architecture, APIs, codebase, and team culture. We’ll be shipping daily and experimenting with ideas and interactions as we envision them, focusing on usability, attention to detail, performance, and innovation around optimal team communication.
Who you are
- An accomplished backend engineer with experience in designing, building, and maintaining scalable backend systems.
- Can identify system bottlenecks and optimize with simple, maintainable solutions while preparing for future changes and growth.
- Can quickly define, implement, and test API endpoints and prototype implementations against them while focusing on the end user experience that you’re validating.
- A self-starter, a builder, a doer. You know how to architect a project the “right way,” but also know when to ask about requirements and make tradeoffs depending on the maturity of the project.
- Care about details but know when to avoid getting lost in the weeds and prioritize the immediate outcomes needed.
- Want to be part of a scrappy, early team who is building something ambitious and exciting
What we're looking for
- 5+ years of backend development experience, including building resilient, scalable services that handle high-throughput data pipelines
- 2+ years of designing and maintaining production-grade systems, from data ingestion and model integration to serving and monitoring, with attention to latency and cost trade-offs
- 2+ years of experience with a strongly-typed, server-side language (e.g. Go, TypeScript) in production environments
- 2+ years working with SQL (and NoSQL) databases at both application and infrastructure levels, including schema design, query optimization, and performance tuning
- Experience designing and maintaining RESTful and GraphQL APIs, with emphasis on integrating AI/ML inference endpoints and ensuring predictable SLAs
- Familiarity with AI/ML pipelines and RAG systems, including text chunking, vector store tuning, and relevance optimization
- Proficient in observability tooling—monitoring, logging, alerting—to catch edge cases, maintain uptime, and validate model performance in production
- Independent and self-motivated; maintaining side projects or open-source libraries in AI/ML is a major plus
Compensation & Benefits
- The pay range of base compensation for this role is typically $180,000 - $220,000.
- Flexible vacation policy—we’re moving quickly but want a sustainable culture.
- This role will work out of our lovely San Francisco office.
Glue is committed to providing equal employment opportunities for all applicants and employees. Glue doesn’t discriminate on the basis of any protected characteristic, including race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, creed, age, disability, sex, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, medical condition, genetic information, family care or medical leave status, marital status, domestic partner status, military and veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by US federal, state or local laws, or the laws of the country or jurisdiction where you work.
Glue San Francisco, California, USA Office
San Francisco, California, United States
Similar Jobs
Artificial Intelligence • Cloud • Machine Learning • Mobile • Software • Virtual Reality • App development
Design, implement, and operate backend services and scalable distributed systems (identity, friend graph, persistence). Collaborate across teams, ensure availability, scalability, and operational excellence, use AI tools to accelerate development, participate in incident response, and deliver medium-sized features with high code quality and security.
Top Skills:
Ai ToolsAWSC++Cloud ComputingDistributed SystemsGCPJavaKubernetesMachine LearningMemcacheMicroservicesNatural Language ProcessingNoSQLPythonRedisStorage Systems
Cloud • Computer Vision • Information Technology • Sales • Security • Cybersecurity
Build and maintain cloud-based systems that manage and distribute configuration to millions of endpoints. Design and implement scalable backend services (primarily in Go, with some Python), collaborate across teams, perform code reviews, ensure testing/logging/resilience, troubleshoot production outages, and contribute to platform reliability. Work is hybrid with occasional travel for in-person meetings.
Top Skills:
AWSAzureC++CassandraElasticsearchGCPGoKafkaKubernetesLinux ContainersPythonRedisTypescriptUnix Shell
Consumer Web • Healthtech • Professional Services • Social Impact • Software
Design and build reliable backend services powering clinical data, insurance billing, patient-facing infrastructure, and financial ledger systems. Scale high-integrity systems requiring idempotency, strong consistency, and pragmatic AI integration to automate provider workflows and enable personalized patient experiences.
Top Skills:
AWSClaudeCursorDatadogEddyGeminiPagerdutyPostgresPythonRedisSentrySnowflakeTemporalTypescript
What you need to know about the San Francisco Tech Scene
San Francisco and the surrounding Bay Area attracts more startup funding than any other region in the world. Home to Stanford University and UC Berkeley, leading VC firms and several of the world’s most valuable companies, the Bay Area is the place to go for anyone looking to make it big in the tech industry. That said, San Francisco has a lot to offer beyond technology thanks to a thriving art and music scene, excellent food and a short drive to several of the country’s most beautiful recreational areas.
Key Facts About San Francisco Tech
- Number of Tech Workers: 365,500; 13.9% of overall workforce (2024 CompTIA survey)
- Major Tech Employers: Google, Apple, Salesforce, Meta
- Key Industries: Artificial intelligence, cloud computing, fintech, consumer technology, software
- Funding Landscape: $50.5 billion in venture capital funding in 2024 (Pitchbook)
- Notable Investors: Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Greylock Partners, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins
- Research Centers and Universities: Stanford University; University of California, Berkeley; University of San Francisco; Santa Clara University; Ames Research Center; Center for AI Safety; California Institute for Regenerative Medicine
