About the team
The Foundations team builds and evolves the application-level infrastructure that powers Hex. We own the shared backend systems, frameworks, and primitives that other teams depend on—helping the company move faster while maintaining reliability, performance, and security.
Our work spans APIs, realtime transport, storage frameworks, background processing, and internal tooling. Rather than shipping isolated features, we focus on creating durable systems that scale with the company and make product development easier for everyone.
About the role
We’re looking for a Senior Backend Software Engineer to help design, maintain, and evolve the core systems used across Hex. This role is centered on backend architecture and shared infrastructure, with responsibility for APIs, realtime communication, data access frameworks, job orchestration, and internal admin tooling.
You’ll work closely with product engineering teams to understand their needs, then turn common patterns into robust, reusable systems. You’ll help define standards, influence architecture, and raise the quality bar across the backend.
Frontend experience is helpful for understanding end-to-end workflows, but this role is primarily backend-focused.
Core Contributions
You will help contribute to and evolve several foundational areas, including:
APIs
GraphQL(schema design, performance, developer ergonomics)
Authentication & authorization(security, scalability, correctness)
Multiplayer & collaboration APIs(realtime state, concurrency)
Transport
WebSockets and realtime communication infrastructure
Storage Frameworks
Postgres (schema design, query optimization, migrations)
S3, DynamoDB, Redis
Job & Workflow Systems
BullMQ and background job processing
Temporal or similar workflow orchestration systems
Internal Tooling
Internal admin tools for debugging, operations, and customer support
What You'll Do
Design and build backend frameworks and services used across the company
Own and evolve critical shared systems, including APIs, realtime transport, and job orchestration
Improve reliability, performance, observability, and security of foundational backend infrastructure
Partner with product teams to turn recurring needs into shared abstractions
Lead technical design discussions and help set architectural direction
Drive refactors, migrations, and system upgrades that reduce long-term complexity
Improve internal tooling to support debugging, operations, and customer-facing workflows
Mentor other engineers and contribute to strong engineering standards and practices
What we're looking for
5+ years of professional software engineering experience with a strong backend focus
Experience working with Typescript/Node.js and SQL
Experience building and maintaining shared backend systems or frameworks used by multiple teams
Strong understanding of API design, distributed systems, and asynchronous workflows
Experience working with relational databases and data modeling at scale
Familiarity with background job systems, queues, or workflow orchestration tools
Comfort operating and evolving production systems over time
Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred)
Strong communication skills and a collaborative, leverage-oriented mindset
Bonus Points
Experience with Python
Hands-on experience with GraphQL, WebSockets, BullMQ, or Temporal
Familiarity with observability tooling (metrics, tracing, logging)
Background in data platforms, developer tools, or collaborative systems
Experience with frontend technologies (e.g. React, TypeScript) for end-to-end context
Open-source contributions, especially in backend or infrastructure projects
Our stack
Our product is a web-based notebook and app authoring platform. Our frontend is built with Typescript and React, using a combination of Apollo GraphQL and Redux for managing application state and data. On the backend, we also use Typescript to power an Express/Apollo GraphQL server that interacts with Postgres, Redis, and Kubernetes to manage our database and Python kernels. Our backend is tightly integrated with our infrastructure and CI/CD, where we use a combination of Terraform, Helm, and AWS to deploy and maintain our stack.
In addition to our unique culture, Hex proudly offers a competitive total rewards package, including but not limited to, market-benched salary & equity, comprehensive health benefits, and flexible paid time off.
The salary range for this role is: $215,000 - $270,000
The salary range shown may be a reflection of additional factors such as geographical location and skill ranges/levels we’re open to. Placement in the salary range will be decided upon completion of the interview process, taking into account factors like leaving room for growth, internal fairness & parity, your demonstrated skills, and the depth of your experience. Our Recruiting team will be able to provide more details during the interview process.
By submitting an application the candidate consents to the use of their personal information in accordance with the Hex Privacy policy: https://learn.hex.tech/docs/trust/privacy-policy.
