Staff Software Engineer @ Tilt

Tilt (check us out here) is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our team and help us scale our business. Tilt is at an inflection point, our core application has taken us far, and now it's time to evolve it. We’re looking for a Staff Engineer to lead that evolution: someone who can deeply understand complex systems, challenge the status quo, and turn architectural vision into practical, shipped reality. This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You’ll write code, build proofs of concept, and set the bar for how we design, build, and scale systems, leading through clarity, execution, and mentorship. This position is a full-time role reporting to our CTO. Below is a description of your role and responsibilities, including the things you will be held accountable for and the virtues, behaviors and competencies that are expected for this role.

Responsibilities will include:

Strategic Partnership & Problem Shaping

• Partner closely with Product and Engineering leadership to identify, frame, and drive resolution of high-impact business and technical blockers
• Proactively surface opportunities across systems, product, and processes using data signals, domain expertise, and observed gaps
• Convene and lead cross-functional discussions (Product, Design, Engineering, Data) to ideate solutions, align on direction, and drive informed trade-off decisions
• Translate ambiguous or loosely defined problem spaces into clear technical strategies, influencing roadmap priorities and sequencing
• Act as a force multiplier by connecting initiatives across teams, ensuring alignment, reducing duplication, and accelerating progress toward strategic goals
• Shapes not only what gets built, but why and when, ensuring engineering effort is consistently aligned with business outcomes

Architecture & Technical Strategy

• Leads the evolution of system architecture (e.g., monolith-to-services) with a clear, pragmatic roadmap
• Designs scalable, maintainable full-stack systems with clear separation of concerns across backend services, APIs, and frontend applications
• Applies these principles within our current stack (Django/Python, Next.js/React) while remaining stack-agnostic in architectural thinking
• Drives architectural patterns (e.g., event-driven systems) that improve decoupling, extensibility, and long-term velocity
• Makes and communicates architectural tradeoffs, aligning technical decisions with business goals
• Validates direction through POCs, frameworks, and iterative adoption strategies

Engineering Excellence & System Quality

• Sets the standard for clean, maintainable, high-quality code across backend and frontend
• Defines and evolves best practices (API design, abstractions, performance, reliability)
• Improves testing strategy, system design patterns, and development workflows
• Owns system reliability, performance, and production health
• Establishes strong observability practices (logging, tracing, alerting)
• Designs for resilience (failure handling, retries, graceful degradation, distributed system challenges)

Execution, Influence & Team Multiplication

• Contributes production-grade code across the stack while maintaining architectural oversight
• Improves team velocity and clarity through better systems, tooling, and patterns
• Mentors and levels up engineers through pairing, feedback, and design collaboration
• Leads through influence, raising the technical bar without relying on authority
• Creates leverage by enabling others to deliver higher-quality work more independently

You’re a great fit if

• You have 7+ years of experience building and scaling production systems
• You have deep expertise in Python/Django and strong experience with modern frontend (React / Next.js)
• You bring proven experience evolving or decomposing monolithic systems into services
• You have a strong understanding of system design, APIs, and distributed system
• You are experienced with event-driven systems (Kafka, SNS/SQS, or similar
• You have a strong grasp of tradeoffs in scalability, consistency, and performance
• You possess the ability to design systems that balance speed, quality, and long-term maintainability
• You have hands-on experience with AWS (EKS/Kubernetes, networking, IAM)
• You have experience with observability tools (Datadog or equivalent)
• You are familiar with resilience patterns (retries, circuit breakers, graceful degradation)
• You can show a track record of shipping complex systems, not just reviewing them
• You have high levels of empathy and can connect deeply with Tilt’s mission
• You are comfortable working in ambiguous environments and know that we need your help to figure things out
• You are a comfortable using a lot of systems at once, and have the ability to learn software quickly
• You are fearlessly flexible and curious; aka you thrive in an environment where we don't have all the answers but are willing to help us figure them out
• You have experience working with a startup and/or with a B2B SaaS business

Virtues/Competencies:

Health & Family First

• You've proven to be able to integrate all aspects of your life in a way that produces excellent work and ensures you care for what matters most in your life
• You get things done at a pace consistent with the business needs
• You consistently show up prepared, dependable and follow through on commitments
• Autonomy + Team. Always
• You are highly organized and can manage multiple priorities and deadlines at onceYou are focused on scale and building - you understand that pace is equally as important as quality

Be Curious

• When you don’t have all of the answers, you dig in and ask questions
• You don’t let negative assumptions drive your actions and instead assume positive intent and find truth
• You are intentional in discovering the paths of self-development Tilt has to offer and seek out opportunities to engage in professional growth

Love Our Customers

• You lead with empathy and compassion, meeting customers where they are and supporting them with intention and care
• You take the time to deeply understand customers’ needs, goals, and challenges, not just the task at hand
• You communicate openly and honestly, even when conversations are difficult

Fearlessly Flexible

• You embrace change and navigate ambiguity with confidence and curiosity
• You take initiative and make progress even when direction isn’t fully defined

Total Compensation

The projected annual salary range is $180,000 - $200,000 USD plus stock options (ISOs), because we believe everyone should have some stake in our business.

Additional benefits include:

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision benefits paid at 100% for all employees and 50% for dependents.
• 401k + match (100% match on the first 3%, 50% match on the next 2%)
• $50 monthly to spend on “What Matters Most”
• Responsible Time Off - take what you need, when you need it!

More about our amazing Perks and Benefits can be found here!

More about Tilt

Tilt’s mission is big: make leave not suck. We are building a product that makes it easy for people to switch between work and life. If you join us, you’ll be part of a fearless band of humans helping employers balance empathy with economics. We’re changing the status quo and it’s hard. You should know that now. You should also know that joining Tilt means the opportunity to be a change-maker.

Remote Work & Flexibility

We are a fully remote company. We are committed to being fearlessly flexible and ensuring that all employees are set up and have the autonomy to do their best work, as well as have the balance to care for their health, family and life outside of work. Overall, we trust our team and are focused on outcomes not outputs.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We celebrate and support our differences. We believe in the power of equality which is why we are an equal opportunity employer. Employment at Tilt is based solely on a person’s merit and qualifications related to their professional competence. Tilt does not discriminate against any employee or applicant because of race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, or any other basis protected by law. We comply with all applicable national, state, and local laws pertaining to nondiscrimination and equal opportunity.

You must be authorized to work in the US.

So what do you say? Do you want to join our team?