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 Sr. Backend Engineer to help build, scale, and evolve the backend systems powering our consumer-facing mobile products. You’ll architect reliable services, increase speed and resilience, optimize infrastructure, and unlock new features that help users achieve goals and earn points more effectively. You’ll architect reliable services, increase speed and resilience, optimize infrastructure, and unlock new features that help users achieve goals and earn points more effectively.
This is a hands-on, high-impact role ideal for someone who loves solving complex systems problems, building scalable APIs, and shipping features that directly impact product performance and user experience.
You will collaborate closely with product, design, data, and frontend engineering to deliver features through rapid development cycles and deployment.
Who You Are and 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 to the Team
6+ years of backend engineering experience, ideally in consumer apps, mobile, or SaaS, with at least 2 years in a senior-level role
Expert-level proficiency in Ruby on Rails, including modern versions and best practices (this is central to the role)
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
Proficiency using Redis for caching, job queues, and distributed locking
Experience with DynamoDB or comparable NoSQL databases
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
Familiarity with AWS services, including S3, DynamoDB, SQS, CloudWatch, and SES
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
Nice to Have:
Event-driven or streaming architecture
AI-assisted/AI agentic development (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, Codex, etc.)
Feature flagging, experimentation, or A/B testing
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.
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 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 and work milestones.
Remote social activities, including virtual coffee buddies.
Bonusly - 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, generous Company Holidays, and Wellness Days (for full-time team members).
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.