Staff Software Engineer - Backend

Facet's backend services are the cornerstone of our creative platform, enabling groundbreaking creative processes for users worldwide. These services facilitate a seamless editing workflow, from image conversion and high-resolution rendering to machine learning-based image analysis and synthesis, alongside robust collaboration and commenting functionalities.

As a Staff Backend Engineer, your role is to be the technical cornerstone of our backend development efforts. You will be at the forefront of architecting, developing, and optimizing our backend services, focusing on scalability, performance, and reliability. This position is designed for a visionary engineer who excels in solving complex problems, anticipates the evolving needs of a dynamic product landscape, and drives innovation from the ground up.

This role offers a unique opportunity for a highly skilled backend engineer passionate about leveraging their deep technical knowledge to empower creativity, expression, and beauty. If you're ready to shape the future of a leading creative platform and make a lasting impact, we're eager to connect with you.

Requirements

• Deep Technical Expertise: Proven track record of designing and implementing complex backend systems, with extensive experience in high-load environments.

• Mastery of backend technologies and architectural patterns is essential.

• Problem-Solving Excellence: Exceptional ability to tackle complex technical problems independently. Your skill set should include advanced performance optimization, troubleshooting, and system architectural design.

• Innovative Mindset: Demonstrated ability to drive technical projects and innovations without the need for supervision. You should be naturally curious, constantly exploring new technologies and approaches to improve product and system performance.

• Collaborative Spirit: The ability to work collaboratively with teams across the organization is crucial. Your communication skills should bridge the gap between technical and non-technical stakeholders, fostering a cohesive development environment.

• Empathy for Users: A strong understanding of and empathy for the creative process. Your work will significantly impact the usability and functionality of the platform for designers, artists, and visual creatives.

Responsibilities

• System Architecture and Optimization: Design and implement scalable backend systems that efficiently meet current and future product demands. Your expertise in microservices, cloud computing, and containerization will be pivotal in creating solutions that ensure our services can gracefully scale with increased user load.

• Technical Innovation: Independently identify technical opportunities and challenges, proposing and implementing cutting-edge solutions that enhance our backend capabilities. You will lead by example, showcasing best practices in coding, optimization, and system design.

• Strategic Technical Decision-Making: Make key architectural and technological choices that define the future of our backend services. You will assess and integrate new technologies and methodologies to keep our systems at the cutting edge.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, frontend developers, and designers, providing technical insights and guidance to ensure that backend developments align with user needs and product vision.

Added plus: personal or professional exposure to photography, video creators, production or post-production including VFX and editing.

Facet benefits

• Competitive salary and equity.

• Paid parental leave for primary or secondary caregivers.

• Three weeks paid vacation.

• Medical, Dental, Vision Insurance and OneMedical membership.

• Build your own work environment: customize your laptop and desk setup with any peripheral or accessory you'd like.

• Order any work-related books on the company's Amazon account.

• Flexible working hours: we have daily team stand-ups, but we understand if you work better when you're not tethered to your desk.

• Relocation assistance.

• Yearly stipend for learning and development.

• Commuter benefits including a monthly ride-sharing stipend.

About Facet

Facet powers visual storytelling at scale through creative and supportive AI. Create stunning visuals with our AI-driven, project-based photo editor.

Designed from the ground up to rethink the process of photorealistic editing, Facet lets you edit, collaborate, and create in a brand new way. 'AI-driven' means that Facet sees a photo like you see a photo - as a picture instead of pixels - so you can edit intuitively. A project-based file structure means that when you edit one photo your edits apply instantaneously to your whole project - whether that's tens, hundreds, or thousands of photos. Bring stakeholders into your file to comment and collaborate simultaneously - or export your edits and apply them to a new project or share with a collaborator.

Surf through styles and unlock new visual directions with non-destructive editing and an infinite history embedded within your layers. Whether you're an artist, content editor, or brand manager, Facet gives you the tools you need to streamline your process, so you can go wherever your creativity takes you.

Facet is being used by thousands of creatives around the world. You can see examples of their work on Instagram and Behance. Facet is backed by Accel Partners and a diverse group of designers, product thinkers, and AI luminaries from Google Brain, Salesforce, and FAIR.

Working with us

Consensus goals, independent execution. We value collaboration on goal setting and technical/company direction while giving individuals latitude and ownership over how these goals are achieved.

Decathlon, not a sprint. Creative AI is a rapidly blooming space, so we need to move quickly to build product and grow our market.

We all juggle multiple roles and we're in it for the long haul. At the same time, we understand downtime is important. We don't have an explicit vacation policy, but unlike other startups we expect you to gauge your level of stress and take one when you need it.

Sane experimentation. We're exploring new territory and building a new product category.

We need to experiment and try new things while maintaining a stable foundation for our future work. Our product should make the world better, and we shouldn't break anything we're not sure we can fix. Facet is partnering with artists and designers to develop a powerful, ethical approach to our technology, democratizing artistic expression in a safe, responsible way.

Creative + technical. Facet is about making technology a partner in the creative process. We enjoy product design, engineering, and research-but also photography, music, art, and cooking.

Diverse backgrounds. We're solving a completely new problem and need a diverse set of viewpoints and voices to fully understand its scope and extent. We're building a company and culture that can responsibly and respectfully integrate a plurality of voices.

Tea and baked goods. We're really into tea and baking & think these are good things.

Why join us?

• AI for creative tools is something we at Facet believe very deeply in-as machine perception improves, we're truly at the cusp of a renaissance in new tools for visual artists.

• Facet is something that has the potential to become a huge independent powerhouse, making creative work easier and more accessible for folks of all stripes, and we're the right team for this problem.

• We are highly technical and we are backed by AI and product experts from Google Brain, Salesforce Metamind and FAIR. Joe founded two successful companies prior to Facet:
  
  Metamarkets was acquired by Snap and Premise has expanded to provide basic income and data services to underserved communities in over 30 different countries. Matt has deep expertise in computer graphics and machine learning, and previously led the engineering team at Operator.

• As a member of the founding team, you'll have a significant influence on our product and we're top 1% in equity compensation for our early employees. We're going to make mistakes, we're going to write and rewrite a ton of code, and we're going to struggle with product direction and market development.
  
  We're being upfront because above all else we value honest communication and collaboration. There is no other way to successfully navigate a seed stage business. By working together, we can go farther, faster, and accomplish more than any of us could by ourselves.