Staff Software Engineer, Backend Platform
Staff backend platform engineer at Harvey building the shared backend platform — internal frameworks, libraries, APIs, and service templates — that all product teams build on, with a focus on reliability, observability, and developer experience. Core stack: Python, Flask/FastAPI, asyncio, Redis, Kafka, and SQL/NoSQL/vector databases.
- Compensation
- $231K–$325K / yr
- Location
- San Francisco
- Work setup
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Staff
- Employment
- Not specified
- Experience
- 8+ years
- Category
- Backend
- Posted
Skills
Must have
- 8+ years of software engineering experience (post-BS/MS), including building scalable backend systems or internal developer platforms
- Proficiency in Python (or similar languages) and deep knowledge of backend fundamentals (APIs, data stores, concurrency, distributed systems)
- Hands-on experience with web frameworks and service architectures (e.g. Flask/FastAPI, microservices) and designing clean, versioned APIs
- Familiarity with caching, messaging, and database technologies (Redis, Kafka, SQL/NoSQL, vector databases) for high performance and reliability
- Track record of high-quality, well-tested code using unit/integration testing, static typing, and CI
- Strong problem-solving skills and passion for improving developer experience
- Excellent collaboration and communication skills
Nice to have
- Experience contributing to or maintaining internal libraries/frameworks
Full description
Why Harvey
At Harvey, we’re transforming how legal and professional services operate. By combining frontier agentic AI, an enterprise-grade platform, and deep domain expertise, we’re reshaping how critical knowledge work gets done for decades to come.
This is a rare chance to help build a generational company at a true inflection point. We have strong product-market fit and world-class investor support. We’re scaling fast and defining a new category in real time. The work is ambitious, the bar is high, and the opportunity for growth — personal, professional, and financial — is unmatched.
Our team moves fast, takes ownership, and is deeply committed to the mission — operating with intensity, staying close to our customers, and pushing each other for excellence. We live by three values: Decisiveness, Simplicity, and Job's Not Finished. We act quickly on clear judgment over perfect information, we believe simplicity is what scales, and we're never satisfied with where we are. If you want to do the best work of your career alongside people who share that drive, we'd love to build with you.
At Harvey, the future of professional services is being written today — and we’re just getting started.
Role Overview
As a Backend Platform Engineer at Harvey, you will help build and operate the cohesive backend platform that all our services run on. You’ll design and implement shared frameworks and libraries that abstract common concerns, improve developer experience, and raise the baseline for reliability and performance across all teams.
Your mission aligns with our platform charter: create “a shared foundation that enables product teams to ship reliable, observable, and performant experiences quickly and safely.” By centralizing common work, you’ll let product engineers focus on shipping features rather than re-inventing the wheel. This is a high-impact role where the code you write and the systems you build will amplify the productivity and quality of engineering across the entire company.
If you’re excited about building foundational systems, solving cross-cutting technical challenges, and enabling others to move faster with confidence, we’d love to hear from you.
What You'll Do
- Develop and maintain Harvey’s internal backend frameworks and libraries that provide common capabilities (API routing, service lifecycle management, caching and messaging primitives, error handling interfaces, etc.), so product teams don’t have to reinvent them
- Create and improve APIs, service templates, and versioned interfaces that establish consistent patterns for building new services and features
- Introduce and champion modern backend architecture patterns like asynchronous I/O (asyncio) and streaming data processing, continually evolving our platform for better performance and scalability