Senior Backend Software Engineer

About Needle

Needle is on a mission to help brands with smaller teams achieve big growth with less effort. Our AI-powered marketing system replaces the bottleneck of 10+ tools, agencies, and freelancers with one platform that gets smarter every week. Brands using Needle grow 177% in a year while slashing marketing costs by 62%.

We're growing fast with 50%+ demo-to-close rates. We've raised over $2.4MM from investors like Iterative, Ethos Fund, EQ2 Ventures, and Goldbell. Now we're scaling our infrastructure to handle 10x growth.

You'll be our first senior backend hire outside the founding team.

Why it's exciting

You'll
architect the backend systems
that power our AI marketing engine from the ground up… building intelligent, data-driven systems that help brands create thousands of high-performing campaigns with minimal human effort.

We are an early-stage, fast-moving team that builds intelligent, data-driven systems to power modern digital marketing systems. We care deeply about architecture, scalability, and maintainability… not just shipping fast but shipping well.

We design our systems using clean, modular principles such as Domain-Driven Design, Onion Architecture, and Clean Architecture to ensure that our software adapts and evolves gracefully as we grow.

You'll own:

• The domain model and system design
  using principles like Domain-Driven Design, Onion Architecture, and Clean Architecture
• Production-grade systems
  from architecture to deployment and monitoring
• Scalability decisions
  as we grow from hundreds to thousands of brands

You'll work directly with the founding Tech Lead and shape how we build. This isn't a feature factory… it's a chance to define the engineering culture and architecture that will scale to $100MM+ ARR.

Who We're Looking For

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer with proven experience in building and deploying production-grade applications from start to finish. You will have meaningful ownership of our backend systems, from architecture and design to development, deployment, and monitoring.

You'll be a great fit if:

• You take full ownership of projects, understanding both the technical and business context while ensuring timely and reliable delivery.
• You are a proactive problem-solver who thrives in uncertainty, identifies risks early, and takes initiative to move things forward.
• You value clean, testable, and maintainable code and believe good architecture makes teams faster and more effective.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, and deploy backend systems using modern software architecture practices and code that can be easily maintained and extended.
• Collaborate with experts to define our domain model and ensure clear separation of concerns through principles inspired by Domain-Driven Design and Onion Architecture.
• Collaborate with data and frontend engineers to design efficient interfaces and data flows.
• Ensure scalability, security, and performance in all production environments.
• Participate in code reviews, technical discussions, and architectural planning.

What We're Looking For

Core Technical Skills

• Languages: Python and JavaScript )
• Databases: SQL and NoSQL systems such as PostgreSQL, BigQuery, and Firestore
• Architecture: Strong understanding of system design, OOP, modular architectures, and clean layering, including DDD and Onion/Clean Architecture principles
• API Design: Experience with RESTful APIs, background jobs, durable execution, and event-driven or message-based patterns
• Data Handling: Ability to design and optimize complex data models, queries, and pipelines

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with third-party API integrations such as Shopify, Facebook Ads, or Google Ads
• Experience with machine learning pipelines or model fine-tuning
• AI Agents: Experience with agentic frameworks, agent architectures, graph execution, evaluation, and user interface integration
• Experience working with Google Cloud Platform services such as BigQuery, Pub/Sub, Redis, or Cloud Run

Perks & benefits

• Competitive salary + meaningful equity grant
  (4-year vesting with 1-year cliff)
• Flexible, remote-first work
  (co-work 1 day/week if you're in a city with team members)
• High visibility and impact
  in a fast-growing startup… your code powers the entire platform
• Work directly with the founding leadership team
  to shape engineering culture and technical direction
• 36 days off annually
  (including public holidays)
• Healthcare coverage