Senior / Staff Product Engineer, Backend
At a glance
Senior Backend Engineering role at Radar. New York · full-time · $200,000–$300,000 base.
techroles summary, based on the employer's posting.
What you'll do
- Build core Radar products with TypeScript, Rust, Python and Scala
- Develop capabilities in the backend API and offline data pipelines
- Create software that handles the platform’s stated daily API traffic
- Talk with customers and prospects, then use their feedback to improve the product and support their success
What you bring
- You approach engineering broadly rather than limiting yourself to one technology stack
- You’re willing to speak with customers or prospects and help them succeed
- You’re curious about how systems work and persistent when solving difficult problems
Who this fits
This suits a generalist engineer who enjoys switching between technical areas and engaging directly with customers. The role can be based at the New York City office or remote within the US; the final interview takes place at the NYC office.
From the employer
About Radar
Radar is the global leader in geolocation, with geofencing SDKs, maps APIs, and AI-enabled solutions for marketing, fraud, and operations teams.
Why is Radar the best place to work?
We're trusted by some of the world's best companies, from high-growth startups to the Fortune 500.
We have incredible scale: We're processing over 1 billion API calls per day from hundreds of millions of devices.
We're well-resourced, and we've raised $85.5M from world-class investors, including Accel and Insight Partners.
We have a high-performance culture, with ambitious and entrepreneurial teammates in every role.
We recently moved into an amazing new office in Flatiron, Manhattan, NYC.
We were recently named a top 10 best place to work in NYC by Crain's.
Despite our growth and scale, we're still just getting started. That's where you come in.
About the role:
We're looking for Backend Product Engineers to extend the core Radar platform. Our daily traffic is 1 Billion API calls / day (15,000 requests / second) so you will be operating at scale. This role can either be in our NYC HQ or remote in the US.
How we work:
Most of our engineering team are former technical co-founders or former Radar interns from schools like Waterloo and CMU. Most engineers at Radar fit one of two molds, technically: either Staff level expertise in one stack, or "Multi-Stack" at any level. We say "Multi-Stack" because "Full-Stack" has the connotation of "Frontend and Backend", but Radar Engineers might also work on Mobile or Data engineering. Not that you need to be an expert in all of those, but a desire to learn, jump around to different stacks, and get things done is the important part.
We care a lot about shipping fast and talking to customers. We're committed to our product vision of full-stack location infrastructure, but we also know that customer feedback is a treasure map to gold. Even though Slack is the brain of our company, working together in-person in our NYC HQ is the fastest way for us to get things done. We meet on Mondays to plan out work for the week in small groups and use Linear for planning.
To us, a week is a long time, and we expect to ship big things every week.
The stack:
The API layer is a Node.js TypeScript app.
Our main backend service is a geospatial database written in Rust that we call HorizonDB.
We use MongoDB, S3/Athena, Redis, and Airflow.
Everything is deployed to AWS via Kubernetes on EKS using Terraform .
Most engineers are in the on-call rotation.
We sponsor OpenStreetMaps, MapLibre, and OpenAddresses.
How we use AI:
Engineers choose what AI tools they use, Claude and Codex being the most popular.
We're actively building Claude skills - for example we've taught it how to debug HorizonDB, our geospatial database.
All code changes are reviewed by an Engineer knowledgeable in that area. Claude and Codex also review all PRs.
There is a range of how much engineers use AI. Most use it daily if not weekly.
We are excited about what AI can do, but we also recognize the risks and don't compromise our coding standards.
The hiring process:
After a call with our Technical Recruiter, you'll do several technical Zoom calls with members of our engineering team: code screen, coding round, and system design round. If those go well we'll invite you to our NYC HQ for a final round interview. You'll meet one of our co-founders, someone from outside engineering, and meet more people from Radar. We'll go into more depth about how we work to see if there is a match.
What you’ll do:
Work on core Radar products using TypeScript, Rust, Python and Scala
Work on features across the backend API layer and offline pipelines
Have your work power 1 Billion API calls / day
Talk to Radar customers and prospects, hear their feedback, incorporate it into your work and make them successful
You should:
Think of yourself as a generalist engineer first, not tied to any particular stack
Are interested in talking to customers or prospects and making them successful
Are deeply curious about how things work, and have the tenacity to sit with hard problems and power through them
Bonus points if you:
Are a former technical co-founder
Have worked on a high throughput, high growth SaaS application
Have worked on geospatial infrastructure
You’ll work with:
Nick Patrick, Co-Founder and CEO
Tim Julien, CTO
Our customers and prospects
Our Customer Success, Sales Engineering, and Sales teams
What we offer:
Competitive salary
Meaningful stock options in a fast-growing company
401(k) plan with 4% match
New HQ in Flatiron, NYC
Top-notch equipment
Catered lunches
Unlimited PTO
Health, dental, and vision insurance with 100% coverage for employees
12 weeks of paid parental leave
Commuter and fitness benefits
We’ll share full details of our benefits package at the offer stage. Benefits may vary by location.
Radar is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
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