Zencoder
Staff Backend Engineer
Job Summary
The role involves leading technical initiatives for a platform focused on AI-powered coding tools, requiring hands-on coding and architecture design skills. Candidates should have extensive experience in multiple programming languages and building scalable distributed systems in cloud environments. The position emphasizes collaboration, mentorship, and setting high standards for engineering quality. It offers opportunities for innovation, professional growth, and working in a high-growth AI startup environment.
Required Skills
Benefits
Job Description
About Zencoder
Zencoder is building the next generation of AI coding agents — advanced tools that supercharge developer workflows and elevate engineering impact. Our mission is to transform how software is built by equipping developers with AI-powered tools that boost productivity, improve code quality, and unlock creativity.
Our product integrates seamlessly with JetBrains IDEs and VS Code, helping developers generate, refactor, and repair code. It includes fast and intelligent AI code completion, and our agents can independently perform tasks like running shell commands or searching the web to assist with coding and debugging. We're especially proud of our proprietary Repo Grokking™ technology, which enables our AI agents to deeply understand your entire codebase, providing the strongest contextual understanding on the market. Zencoder also connects with 20+ popular tools like Jira, Sentry, GitHub, and GitLab, making it the most integrated AI coding solution available.
This is just a small part of what Zencoder is all about. There’s much more to discover — and we’re just getting started.
The Opportunity
We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our engineering team. This is a critical role for an experienced, hands-on technical leader with a broad and deep skillset across multiple languages such as Go, Python, JVM-based (Java/Kotlin) and strong experience building and scaling distributed systems in cloud environments such as AWS or Google Cloud.
As a Staff Engineer, you will help drive the technical direction of aspects of our platform, setting high standards for system design, code quality, best practices and architectural clarity. You will collaborate across product and engineering to simplify complexity, improve reliability, and make deliberate trade-offs that empower our teams to move fast without sacrificing maintainability.
This is a unique opportunity to join an early-stage company led by serial entrepreneur Andrew Filev (founder of a unicorn startup), and shape a product that is redefining how software is built.
Key Responsibilities
- Act as a technical thought leader, setting a high bar for engineering quality.
- Be hands-on, writing code for new features, prototyping, refactoring existing code to meet best practices, etc.
- Lead design discussions and architecture reviews for high-impact projects.
- Collaborate with product, design, and research teams to define and evolve user-facing functionality with real developer impact.
- Evaluate trade-offs thoughtfully across performance, scalability, complexity, and cost and advocate for clear, maintainable solutions.
- Guide and mentor other engineers, helping them grow while raising the overall technical maturity of the team.
- Influence engineering culture, driving best practices in testing, observability, security, and cloud design.
Essential Qualifications
- 10+ years of experience in software engineering covering multiple large-scale, production-grade systems.
- Expert in at least one of the following languages: Go, Python, JVM-based (Java/Kotlin) with proficiency in at least two.
- Experience building and scaling distributed systems with reliability and performance in mind. This should cover both compute and data layers and include best practices on the observability of such systems.
- Strong background in cloud architecture and infrastructure design in AWS or Google Cloud environments.
- Demonstrated ability to simplify complex systems and reduce unnecessary technical debt while balancing the need to move fast to compete.
- Strong communication skills with a track record of aligning stakeholders, leading cross-functional efforts, and influencing without authority.
- A deep shift‑left mindset throughout the entire SDLC, with early integration of security, automated testing, and CI/CD pipelines.
- Curiosity, pragmatism, and a willingness to challenge assumptions.
Why Join Zencoder?
- Impact: Gen AI will change how companies develop software in the next two years. Be at the frontier of that AI work, building a category-leading product in a huge market. You will have an everyday opportunity to innovate.
- Growth potential: Thrive in a high-growth AI startup combining personal and career growth.
- High Talent Density: Collaborate daily with our experienced AI engineers, software engineers, and founder, Andrew Filev.
- Equity: Align your success with ours by participating in our equity plan.
- Flexibility: We hire globally, prioritizing talent over location. Work where you’re most productive and comfortable.
Zencoder is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees.
Zencoder
Transform your coding experience with Zencoder, the next-gen AI agent that automates tasks, enhances collaboration, and improves code quality seamlessly within your existing workflow.
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