Senior Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform

Patreon is a media and community platform where over 300,000 creators give their biggest fans access to exclusive work and experiences. We offer creators a variety of ways to engage with their fans and build a lasting business including: paid memberships, free memberships, community chats, live video, and selling to fans directly with one-time purchases.

Ultimately our goal is simple: fund the creative class. And we're leaders in that space, with:

  • $10 billion+ generated by creators since Patreon's inception

  • 100 million+ free memberships for fans who may not be ready to pay just yet, and

  • 25 million+ paid memberships on Patreon today.

We're continuing to invest heavily in building the best creator platform with the best team in the creator economy and are looking for a Senior Staff Backend Platform Engineer to support our mission.

This role is based in San Francisco and open to those who are able to be in-office 2 days per week on a hybrid work model.

About the Team

The Backend Platform team builds the foundational systems and infrastructure that power Patreon's creator platform. We're responsible for the core backend services, APIs, databases, infrastructure, and developer tooling that enable product teams across the company to ship quickly, reliably, and at scale. This team is growing and investing in foundational platform capabilities that will support Patreon's next phase of scale and product expansion.

About the Role

  • Define and drive the technical strategy for Patreon's backend platform and foundational infrastructure

  • Lead architecture and implementation of scalable distributed systems, APIs, event-driven systems, and platform services

  • Lead modernization efforts across backend architecture, service boundaries, data access patterns, and infrastructure

  • Establish technical standards and best practices around reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability

  • Partner with product engineering teams to ensure platform capabilities align with business and product needs

  • Shape cross-functional technical decision-making at organizational scale

  • Help evolve operational maturity around incident management, resiliency, and production excellence

  • Mentor Staff and Senior engineers across the organization through design reviews, technical leadership, and hands-on collaboration

What you'll need

  • Extensive experience building large-scale backend systems, with depth in distributed systems and platform architecture (typically 10+ years, or equivalent demonstrated expertise)

  • Deep expertise in distributed systems, high-throughput APIs, and low-latency architectures that support millions of DAUs

  • Experience with databases, caching systems, and storage technologies (e.g. MySQL, Postgres, Redis, DynamoDB)

  • Strong understanding of data modeling, storage systems, caching, queues, and event-driven architectures

  • Experience in performance optimization across APIs, databases, caching layers, and distributed services

  • Strong operational excellence mindset, including incident response and production debugging

  • Experience operating systems in cloud-native environments such as AWS and Kubernetes-based infrastructure

  • Proficiency in one or more backend languages such as Python, Go, Java, or Rust

  • Ability to communicate complex architectural trade-offs clearly in writing and in cross-functional forums

  • Experience mentoring Staff and Senior engineers and contributing to engineering culture through design reviews, documentation, or team standards

We hire talented and passionate people from different backgrounds because workplace diversity and inclusion is critical to our ability to serve creators worldwide. If you’re excited about a role but your past experience doesn’t match with every bullet point outlined above, we strongly encourage you to apply anyway. If you’re a creator at heart, are energized by our mission, and share our company values, we’d love to hear from you.

About Patreon

Patreon powers creators to do what they love and get paid by the people who love what they do. Our team is passionate about making this mission and our core values come to life every day in our work. Through this work, our Patronauts:

  • Put Creators First | They’re the reason we’re here. When creators win, we win.

  • Build with Craft | We sign our name to every deliverable, just like the creators we serve.

  • Make it Happen | We don’t quit. We learn and deliver.

  • Win Together | We grow as individuals. We win as a team.

Patreon is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We provide employment opportunities without regard to age, race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected class. If you need a reasonable accommodation during the interview process, please let us know via email at accommodations@patreon.

Patreon offers a competitive benefits package including and not limited to salary, equity plans, healthcare, flexible time off, company holidays and recharge days, commuter benefits, lifestyle stipends, learning and development stipends, patronage, parental leave, and 401k plan with matching.

Patreon operates under a hybrid work model, where employees based in office locations are expected to come into the office two days per week, excluding sick time and paid leave. The goal of this policy is to be intentional about the in-person time we spend together to strengthen the feeling of community at Patreon. Candidates hired into remote-eligible roles are not expected to meet the same requirements.

At Patreon, we believe in fair and transparent pay. In compliance with New York and California pay transparency laws, we are sharing the expected salary range for this role.

The posted salary range is dependent on the location and the level. This range may encompass multiple levels within the role’s job family. The final offer will be based on candidate’s experience, skills, competencies, and geographic location, aligning with the appropriate job level within Patreon’s leveling framework. For remote employees located outside CA and NY, salary may vary based on location and local market conditions.

Patreon reserves the right to modify or update compensation and benefits at any time.

Back to blog

Common Interview Questions And Answers

1. HOW DO YOU PLAN YOUR DAY?

This is what this question poses: When do you focus and start working seriously? What are the hours you work optimally? Are you a night owl? A morning bird? Remote teams can be made up of people working on different shifts and around the world, so you won't necessarily be stuck in the 9-5 schedule if it's not for you...

2. HOW DO YOU USE THE DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION TOOLS IN DIFFERENT SITUATIONS?

When you're working on a remote team, there's no way to chat in the hallway between meetings or catch up on the latest project during an office carpool. Therefore, virtual communication will be absolutely essential to get your work done...

3. WHAT IS "WORKING REMOTE" REALLY FOR YOU?

Many people want to work remotely because of the flexibility it allows. You can work anywhere and at any time of the day...

4. WHAT DO YOU NEED IN YOUR PHYSICAL WORKSPACE TO SUCCEED IN YOUR WORK?

With this question, companies are looking to see what equipment they may need to provide you with and to verify how aware you are of what remote working could mean for you physically and logistically...

5. HOW DO YOU PROCESS INFORMATION?

Several years ago, I was working in a team to plan a big event. My supervisor made us all work as a team before the big day. One of our activities has been to find out how each of us processes information...

6. HOW DO YOU MANAGE THE CALENDAR AND THE PROGRAM? WHICH APPLICATIONS / SYSTEM DO YOU USE?

Or you may receive even more specific questions, such as: What's on your calendar? Do you plan blocks of time to do certain types of work? Do you have an open calendar that everyone can see?...

7. HOW DO YOU ORGANIZE FILES, LINKS, AND TABS ON YOUR COMPUTER?

Just like your schedule, how you track files and other information is very important. After all, everything is digital!...

8. HOW TO PRIORITIZE WORK?

The day I watched Marie Forleo's film separating the important from the urgent, my life changed. Not all remote jobs start fast, but most of them are...

9. HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A MEETING AND PREPARE A MEETING? WHAT DO YOU SEE HAPPENING DURING THE MEETING?

Just as communication is essential when working remotely, so is organization. Because you won't have those opportunities in the elevator or a casual conversation in the lunchroom, you should take advantage of the little time you have in a video or phone conference...

10. HOW DO YOU USE TECHNOLOGY ON A DAILY BASIS, IN YOUR WORK AND FOR YOUR PLEASURE?

This is a great question because it shows your comfort level with technology, which is very important for a remote worker because you will be working with technology over time...