Staff Backend Engineer

Overview

We're living through a fundamental shift in how people discover, evaluate, and purchase products. The next generation doesn't respond to traditional marketing. They build relationships with brands through authentic social interactions, seek recommendations from communities they trust, and expect personalized experiences that feel human, not corporate.

At Nectar, we're building the AI-native social operating system that enables this new era of commerce. We believe every social interaction should deepen the relationship between brands and their communities while creating genuine value for both sides. Our AI agents listen in real time, surface actionable insights, attribute engagement to revenue, and turn conversations into conversions.

Founded by ex-Meta product and engineering leaders, we work with brands like OLIPOP, Hatch, K18, Little Spoon, and many more. We hit product-market fit last year and are on a fast growth trajectory — the business has grown 10x in the past year, and we're hiring to keep up with customer demand.

What You’ll Do

• Design and build core backend systems : We ingest high volumes of social data in real time from platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn, run AI agents on that content, and surface insights through analytics dashboards. You'll work across this pipeline — building resilient integrations with third-party APIs, optimizing AI workload costs, and scaling the infrastructure underneath it all.

• Drive operational excellenc e: improve reliability, build on-call culture, and mature our systems as we onboard more customers and process 10-100x more data.

• Shape technical direction : write architecture docs, make tool and infrastructure choices, and mentor other engineers. There are no silos here, and engineers have the freedom to work across our entire product and infrastructure stack.

Our tech stack is TypeScript, AWS, Pulumi, Postgres, ClickHouse, and Turbopuffer. We use AI tools thoughtfully to optimize day-to-day work — Cursor, Claude Code, Graphite, v0/Replit, and Granola.

What We’re Looking for

• Backend engineering background with experience designing, building, and operating production systems

• Strong opinions on system design, loosely held — you can drive architectural decisions and bring others along

• Desire to mentor engineers and shape engineering culture and process as the company scales

• Belief that AI is changing how software gets built and a desire to establish AI assisted engineering workflows

• Comfort operating in a fast-moving startup where you'll wear multiple hats and own problems end-to-end

What We Offer

• Competitive salary and meaningful early-stage equity

• Health, dental, and vision insurance with 401(k) matching

• Hybrid work model (Palo Alto office, 3 days/week in-office collaboration)

• No silos - engineers have the freedom to work across our entire product and infrastructure stack, and participate directly in product decisions

Nectar Social is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion.