Design, build, and scale backend systems for a publishing platform. Lead development, ensure system health, and promote engineering standards.
Column is the AI-powered software platform for public information. We build automated tools and workflow solutions that help governments, law firms, and media organizations notify the public. Today, thousands of publishers and tens of thousands of agencies, firms, and individuals rely on Column to keep their communities informed every day. We’re reimagining how public information connects people, institutions, and media.
We're a remote-first team of engineers, designers, and builders who are committed to creating software that supports an informed public.
What You’ll Do
You will design, build and scale the systems that power our publishing platform. Our architecture spans modern frontend technologies and a distributed backend built on Firebase and GCP. This role is for a senior engineer who can drive architectural clarity, lead complex projects with clarity and uphold high engineering standards in a TypeScript-heavy environment. You will:
- Establish and enforce repeatable, scalable engineering patterns through CI, code review and technical leadership.
- Lead development for our backend services and integrations, proactively managing system health across technical and business teams.
- Work alongside a small, senior-leaning team who are responsible for the core user experience, application health, and growth initiatives
- Collaborate with customer-facing teams and peers to support a culture of continuous growth and knowledge sharing
- Work in areas outside of your usual comfort zone and show motivation for learning and personal growth
- Systematic thinker with clear technical opinions and curiosity for root causes.
About You
Minimum Qualifications
- 5+ years in full-stack or backend development, with 3+ years writing production React applications and deep experience with serverless backends
- Hands-on with CI/CD, observability and performance tooling (DataDog, Sentry, CircleCI power user)
- Strong proficiency in SQL
- Experience as a senior engineer at a company with <100 engineers
- Demonstrated ability to take ownership of projects and deliver high-quality, cost-effective and reliable technical solutions.
- Self-motivated with a strong drive to work in a startup environment, leading and shipping technical projects in collaboration with multiple experienced engineers.
- Based in North America (EST to PST time zone)
Preferred Qualifications
- Customer-facing engineering experience
- Experience architecting or scaling document-generation pipelines, such as templating, layout rendering, or file delivery services that integrate with APIs or cloud storage
- Experience in product engineering for a platform supporting similar users such as government agencies
- Opinionated about Node / Typescript standards and deployment/ testing strategies
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary range: $160-190K
Benefits: Comprehensive health coverage, flexible PTO, remote-first culture.
Top Skills
CircleCI
Datadog
Firebase
GCP
React
Sentry
SQL
Typescript
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