Senior Backend Engineer

Prefect is focused on making complex systems easy to trust, and has emerged as the next-generation workflow orchestration platform, with a pythonic, developer-first approach.

Our remote first company is singularly focused on this vision, and every team member directly contributes to its advancement. Every role solves a problem, and everyone can see exactly how their work helps achieve our mission.

To that end, we've carefully created a supportive, high-performance culture - the operating system of our company - that empowers our team to do the best work of their careers and achieve their personal and professional aspirations.

The company operates both open-source and commercial offerings, orchestrating mission critical workflows for Fortune 500 companies, data innovators, and rising startups. We are looking for folks who want to join a remote-first team #LI-Remote to continue building an equally amazing company, product, and developer community.

Role Summary:

Join a small, senior engineering group to build, maintain, and scale our SaaS platforms. To succeed in this role, you’ll need to be comfortable with Python, have experience operating data intensive applications at scale, and enjoy engaging with cross-functional teams to understand which technical solution best delivers for our product.

The right person is a pragmatic Python engineer who thrives in high‑ambiguity startup environments and has repeatedly shipped meaningful backend systems at early‑stage companies.

You'll report to Prefect's Director of Engineering, Jenny.

What You'll Do:

• Build, maintain, and scale Prefect’s SaaS platform in collaboration with engineering and cross-functional teams

• Optimize Python web applications for performance, reliability, and maintainability

• Collaborate tightly with Engineering Teams + Product, Support, and Customer‑facing teams to land solutions that deliver user value

• Exercise ownership of your work end-to-end, observe it from problem definition through prototyping, development, and deployment to production

• Participate in on‑call/incident response
  

Your Qualifications:

• 5+ years of experience in backend engineering roles, with a focus on web applications and distributed systems

• Proficiency in Python, async experience preferred

• Prior experience developing and maintaining data intensive applications at scale

• 3+ years of experience with Postgres and Redis

• 3+ years of experience with monitoring technologies (Grafana, Datadog, or equivalent)

• 3+ years of experience with at least one major cloud platform (Azure, AWS, or GCP)

• Experience with AI-powered development tools (e.g. Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Codebase AI assistants, or similar)

• Self-directed - with initiative for identifying problems, tenacity to propose solutions, comfortable shipping with incomplete information in a small team, and excellent communication skills to keep colleagues updated of progress and blockers

What You'll Get in Return:

Base Salary Ranges

• San Francisco Bay Area & NYC Metro: $194,000 - $242,000

• Washington D.C., Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle: $176,000 - $221,000

• Denver, Chicago, Atlanta, & all other U.S. metros: $172,000 - $214,000

Actual base salary within each range depends on the candidate’s location, experience, and qualifications. Please keep in mind that equity and benefits are not included in the range provided above.

Your recruiter can share more about the salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process

Perks and Benefits

We take care of our team- our benefits are top-notch so that employees can work comfortably from wherever in the world they call home. Check out some of our most exciting benefits offered below.

• Remote-first team with flexible-first culture

• Equity Stock Options

• 401(k) with 5% company match (vests immediately!)

• Unlimited PTO

• Medical, Dental and Vision insurance

• Generous Parental Leave

• Life Insurance and Disability benefits

• $800 remote work stipend for whatever you need to work (food, wellness, equipment etc.)

And that is just the start, there's more! For more info check out our top-of-the-line benefits and perks on our company page.

Belongingness at Prefect:

Belongingness at Prefect is our commitment to ensuring mutual power, access, and opportunity among all groups and individuals who make up our community. We operationalize belongingness through actions large and small on a daily basis, but always with the goal that all groups and individuals can contribute as their most authentic self to the evolution of our product, our team, and our community.

Belongingness is also our commitment to bridge with individuals or groups not yet established in our community, acknowledge differences in a way that affirms distinct identities, and allows for a new, more expansive group identity to form.

Equal Opportunity at Prefect:

Prefect is an equal opportunity employer and encourages applications from people of all backgrounds. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, religion, color, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation and gender identity/expression), national origin, disability or any other status protected under applicable federal, state, or local laws.

Brad is a real live person (👋🏻) and is looking forward to learning more about you through your application.