Staff Backend Engineer, Connect (API Platform)
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Summary
Staff-level backend engineer who owns the architecture of Quo's Connect API platform — public API, OAuth, webhooks, MCP and integrations — mentors senior engineers, and drives cross-team adoption of the API. Stack is Node/TypeScript, Temporal, RabbitMQ, Kubernetes on AWS, Postgres, MongoDB, Elasticsearch, Redis and Datadog.
About the role
Quo is the phone system for modern businesses, and the Connect team is the front door for everything that talks to Quo without a human clicking in the app: the public API, MCP, OAuth, webhooks and integrations with tools like HubSpot, Jobber and Clio.
It's the fastest growing part of the company. The platform handles close to a billion API requests a day, roughly a quarter of all Quo traffic, and a growing number of customers use the API without ever opening the app. In the last 60 days alone, over 16,000 MCP connections have been set up against it.
This is the first true staff role on the team. You'll be the technical voice for Connect: the person who sets the architecture, fields the questions from product, partnerships and leadership, and makes it easy for every other team at Quo to ship through the API.
Some of the things you’ll do:
- Build the system, and the relationships, that let any team at Quo add their feature to the public API in a day or two, then get the rest of engineering to actually use it
- Own the long-term architecture for the API platform. Python and TypeScript SDKs are on the roadmap for Q4, and the longer-term model is Stripe's: product teams describe their surface, the API and SDKs are generated from it, and an ecosystem grows around it
- Be the technical point of contact for partnerships, product and leadership on what the API and integrations can do, set expectations, and protect the roadmap when a request would derail it
- Mentor the senior engineers on the team through design reviews, PR reviews and coaching. You'll write less code than a senior, on purpose
- Keep the platform fast, reliable and observable as traffic keeps climbing
How the team works:
Connect owns its own infrastructure end to end: its own cluster, databases, Redis and queues. The team ships without waiting on anyone. It's small, technically strong, and heading towards two sub-teams as the surface area grows.
Tech Stack & Tools:
- Node and TypeScript on the backend
- Event-driven microservices with Temporal and RabbitMQ at the centre
- Kubernetes on AWS
- Postgres, MongoDB, Elasticsearch and Redis
- Datadog for observability
- Web (React), iOS and Android clients on the other side of the API
Language is not a filter. If you've built the right things in Go, Python, Java or anything else, we'd rather talk to you than to someone who knows Node but hasn't.
About you
- 10+ years in engineering with real time at staff level. You've done this job before, at least once, and you want to be a technical leader rather than a manager
- You've built or owned a public API, developer platform, SDKs or webhooks for a product people pay for. Dev tooling backgrounds count
- You've driven a big cross-team change at a company with 80+ engineers, by getting the right people in each team on board rather than posting a doc and hoping
- You've worked through the stage Quo is at now: Series B into growth, 100 to 300 engineers, process being built and rebuilt. Ideally you've taken a company a step past where we are and know what works
- You're comfortable owning infrastructure alongside application code. This isn't a platform engineering role, but you shouldn't flinch at it
- You communicate clearly in writing and in person, and you're comfortable building rapport across teams
Compensation
The annual base salary range for this position is as follows, plus equity and benefits:
- SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland, Boston, New York and Washington DC Metro: $205,000 to $242,000 USD
- All other US locations: $186,000 to $217,000 USD
- Canada: $189,000 to $222,000 CAD
The range displayed reflects the target for new hire salaries, and within this range, individual pay is determined by your skills and experience, as well as relevant education. Your recruiter can share more and answer questions about the specific salary range during the hiring process.
Salary is just one component of Quo’s total compensation package. Your total rewards package will include equity, extensive medical coverage, a monthly lifestyle stipend, and a flexible PTO policy.