Sr. Backend Engineer (Remote)
Who We Are (Mode.Inc)
Mode.Inc is the parent company of a portfolio of technology businesses, including Mode Mobile, the creator of EarnOS, a transformational software platform that turns ordinary smartphones into "EarnPhones". This innovation empowers users worldwide to monetize everyday mobile activities such as streaming, gaming, and shopping. We enable users to profit from their data and attention, rather than letting only tech giants benefit. What sets us apart is our inclusive approach, converting users into earners, facilitating over $150M in earnings and savings, and going a step further by turning earners into owners by awarding stock ownership in Mode.Inc based on their usage. We have attracted over 40 million users across 170 countries.
Mode Mobile, Inc. Ranked Number 1 Fastest Growing Company in North America on the 2023 Deloitte Technology Fast 500.
For additional insights, check out information about our reward-based super app, Mode Earn App, which also powers the reward engine for our proprietary smartphone, Mode Earn Phone.
Our Team and Culture Drive Our Success
Our team is the heart of our culture. We value innovation, collaboration, and curiosity, with a passion for getting things done. We strive to hire and cultivate the best team members and foster a culture of open communication and transparency. We are driven and hard-working but also committed to having fun along the way. We allow OKRs to guide us, assume positive intent, sometimes agree to disagree and commit, honor our commitments, seek to accomplish more with less, and encourage everyone to speak up as our team owns our company’s success.
You can read more about our team and how we work here.
The Role
We’re looking for an exceptional Senior Backend Engineer to take ownership of production backend systems and help integrate and evolve new products within Mode. This is a hands-on role for someone who is comfortable entering unfamiliar codebases, quickly understanding complex systems, identifying risks, and turning them into reliable, maintainable production systems.
You will collaborate closely with product, design, data, and frontend engineering to deliver features through rapid development cycles and deployment. We are an AI-native company, and you’ll be expected to use modern AI coding and agentic tools as a force multiplier in your everyday engineering work.
What You’ll Do
Build & Scale Core Services
Architect backend systems powering user workflows, notifications, and automation features
Design APIs and microservices built for performance, efficiency, and scale
Quickly learn and apply new technologies as needed
Work with high-volume data systems and event-driven architectures
Improve observability, monitoring, logging, testing, and alerting
Identify performance bottlenecks and implement optimization strategies
Build distributed systems with multiple services, queues, external APIs, and asynchronous data flows
Ensure uptime, stability, and production resilience
Build resilient integrations with third-party services
Work in 2-week sprints with CI/CD and strong code quality practices
Partner with product, data, and frontend to ship features
Participate in system design and architecture reviews
What You Bring
Required
6+ years of backend engineering experience, ideally in consumer apps, mobile, or SaaS, with at least 2 years in a senior-level role
Experience taking ownership of an existing production system or codebase
Ability to quickly understand unfamiliar architecture, code, dependencies, and operational workflows
Strong debugging and problem-solving skills in systems you did not originally design
Comfortable working with incomplete documentation and ambiguity
Ability to identify technical risks and prioritize what needs to be fixed versus what can be left alone
Work across teams and systems to integrate backend services, data, APIs, and operational workflows
Understand dependencies between products and identify opportunities to simplify or standardize where it makes sense
Help evolve inherited systems while maintaining product velocity and customer reliability
Strong production ownership mindset
Take ownership of existing backend services and become a reliable technical owner
Investigate production issues across application, infrastructure, data, and third-party dependencies
Identify and address reliability, security, performance, and maintainability risks
Improve observability, testing, deployment, and operational practices
Make pragmatic decisions about technical debt and modernization
Establish enough documentation and operational knowledge that systems are no longer dependent on a small number of individuals
Strong production experience with Ruby on Rails and the ability to work effectively in an existing Rails codebase
Hands-on production experience with PostgreSQL, including schema design, indexing strategies, query optimization, and performance tuning
Strong expertise with Sidekiq for background job processing, including scheduling, throttling, batching, and reliability patterns
Solid background in API design, RESTful principles, versioning, and serialization
Proven track record of integrating with third-party APIs and external services
Experience designing, building, and scaling distributed systems in production
Strong skills in testing, CI/CD pipelines, logging/monitoring, debugging, and performance optimization
Ability to work in a fast-moving remote startup environment
Preferred:
Experience building and supporting backends for mobile apps
Experience creating internal tools or admin panels with ActiveAdmin
Hands-on work with Shoryuken for SQS message processing
Experience integrating payment processors like Stripe
Proficiency using Redis for caching, job queues, and distributed locking
Experience with DynamoDB or comparable NoSQL databases
Familiarity with AWS services, including S3, DynamoDB, SQS, CloudWatch, and SES
We are an AI-native team: AI coding assistants and agentic developer tools (for example, Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, and Codex) are a standard, expected part of how we build and ship.
Alignment with our core values:
Accountable: You take ownership of your responsibilities, demonstrating trustworthiness and self-discipline. You are consistent in your work, transparent in your actions, and communicate effectively. You follow through on commitments and strive for continuous improvement.
Action-driven: Identify what is most important, agree on scope, execute in a timely manner, and drive the greatest impact. You take initiative, roll up your sleeves, and get things done.
Caring: You genuinely care about yourself and others, our business and craft, our mission and vision, and are passionate in heart and mind. You understand the importance of our team and strive to create a positive, supportive work environment.
Curious: You focus on the ‘why,’ learn and expand your knowledge, explore new ideas, and generally make things better. You're a lifelong learner with a thirst for knowledge and a constant desire to improve.
Thorough: Your work is thoughtful, impactful, timely, accurate, and complete. You pay attention to detail, are meticulous, and ensure quality work and compliance.
Nice to Have:
Event-driven or streaming architecture
Feature flagging, experimentation, or A/B testing
What success looks like
First 30 days:
Understand the existing architecture, codebase, dependencies and production environment
Build relationships with the existing technical team
Identify major reliability, security and operational risks
Become able to independently debug and ship small changes
60 days:
Own meaningful production changes
Resolve priority technical gaps
Improve testing, observability and operational documentation
Become a trusted owner of key backend areas
90 days:
Independently own backend initiatives
Drive reliability and maintainability improvements
Identify opportunities for integration/simplification
Reduce dependency on tribal knowledge and existing team members
How You Work
Take ownership and deliver reliably
Quickly pick up unfamiliar technologies and move between systems
Think beyond the code and care about product outcomes
Communicate clearly, asynchronously, and proactively
Value craftsmanship, testing, and system reliability
Enjoy learning, improving, and making things better over time
We Believe In The Following Workplace Norms
Allow OKRs to Guide Us
Assume Positive Intent
Agree to Disagree & Commit
Set New Precedents
Accomplish More with Less
Hold Yourself & Others to High Standards
Speak Up
Be Resourceful
Follow the 80/20 Rule
What We Are Offering
We are a 100% remote-first, global company.
A competitive compensation package.
We offer generous perks & benefits to team members.
Participation in the Company's equity and token plan (for full-time team members).
We provide individual bonuses in accordance with our Company Bonus Program.
Work with energetic, passionate, and results-driven people.
Celebrate team members' personal & work milestones.
Remote social activities, including virtual coffee buddies.
Bonus.ly - we use Bonusly as a way to recognize and reward team members for their hard work and commitment.
Weekly Wednesday Get Stuff Done Days (No Meetings).
Open PTO and generous Company Holidays (for full-time team members).
10 annual Wellness Fridays.
If we just described you and your perfect role, we'd love to talk with you. We have a lot to accomplish this year and look forward to making headway and creating success together!
Mode.Inc does not accept/pay fees for unsolicited resumes from third-party agencies/vendors.
Our company is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer. We are committed to providing a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We celebrate diversity and strive to create an inclusive environment for all team members.