Lead Software Engineer, Backend - Cortex

About Cortex

Cortex is the Engineering Operations Platform that enables organizations to continuously improve their operational maturity and reduce developer friction. With centralized visibility, clear ownership, automated Scorecards, and golden paths, we help engineering organizations operate as one.

Our customers – from startups to Fortune 100 enterprises – create a culture of engineering excellence, reducing incidents by 30% and improving MTTR by 50%, all while making it easier for developers to focus on building.

Location

We’re fully remote and welcome candidates from across the US. We get together a few times a year for company offsites where we build stronger relationships, kick off important work, and genuinely enjoy spending time together.

The Team

Our team is ~80 people building something developers actually want to use. We recently raised a $60M Series C led by Scale Ventures (alongside Sequoia and IVP). We're focused on making engineering teams more effective.

Job Summary

We are seeking a Lead Software Engineer, Backend to join our team and help us build a new category of developer tooling. You will solve deeply technical problems and dive into scalability issues. You will play a critical role in designing, implementing, and maintaining the core backend systems that power Cortex while working closely with the product and support engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable and efficient backend systems and services that meet enterprise requirements
• Work alongside other engineers to build new features and enhance existing ones
• Optimize and improve the performance, reliability, and scalability of existing backend systems
• Participate in operating our systems in production, including Incident Response on a rotational basis
• Conduct code reviews and provide constructive feedback to team members
• Write clean, maintainable, and testable code that adheres to best practices
• Partner closely with engineering, product, leadership, sales, and our customers to better understand design requests and user experiences
• Continually improve existing planning, development, deployment processes

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent work experience
• 7+ years of experience building backend applications using any modern programming language
• Experience with distributed systems, microservices, and cloud computing platforms
• Experience with modern data storage solutions, such as MySQL, Postgres, MongoDB, etc.
• Knowledge of current standard methodologies and eagerness to try, learn, and adapt to new technologies and programming languages
• Solid fundamental skills in data structures, algorithms, and web development best practices
• Excellent problem-solving and analytical skills
• Strong communication and collaboration skills
• Ability to mentor and coach junior engineers

Compensation & Benefits

• Starting Base Salary: $215,000 - $245,000
• Competitive Equity Package
• National medical, dental & vision insurance (100% coverage for employees)
• Unlimited PTO & flexible working hours
• 401(k) plan
• Gender-neutral parental leave
• $1,000 yearly Learning & Development stipend
• $400 monthly perks stipend
• Pet Insurance