Demo

Staff Software Engineer

Motion Recruitment
Cambridge, MA Full Time
POSTED ON 10/2/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 11/7/2026
A rapidly growing, venture-backed technology organization is seeking Senior and Staff Software Engineers to help establish and scale its Boston engineering presence. This team is building a modern, AI-powered customer data and CRM platform that enables businesses to better manage, activate, and derive insights from their customer data. The role is heavily focused on backend engineering, distributed systems, AWS infrastructure, and high-scale application development, while also contributing to new product experiences built with React and Node.js.

This opportunity is ideal for engineers who have built and operated large-scale production systems at leading technology companies or high-growth startups. The organization is specifically interested in candidates who have worked on core platform, infrastructure, database, analytics, billing, or data-intensive products where scalability, performance, and reliability are mission-critical.

Second Paragraph

The engineering team is tackling complex technical challenges around real-time data processing, cloud infrastructure, and platform scalability. Engineers will have the opportunity to influence architecture, build systems that process large volumes of data, and help shape the technical direction of a growing product organization. This is an excellent opportunity for candidates who thrive in fast-moving environments and are passionate about solving difficult distributed systems problems while building customer-facing applications that deliver measurable impact.

Required Skills & Experience

  • 6 years of professional software engineering experience (Senior level) or 10 years (Staff level)
  • Expert-level proficiency with TypeScript and Node.js
  • Extensive experience designing and operating scalable backend services in production environments
  • Strong experience building on AWS (EC2, ECS/EKS, Lambda, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, CloudWatch, IAM, or similar)
  • Experience designing distributed systems and microservices architectures
  • Proven track record improving system performance, throughput, latency, and reliability
  • Experience operating services handling high-volume traffic and large-scale datasets
  • Strong understanding of cloud-native application development and observability practices
  • Experience working on teams that own critical online databases, APIs, or high-scale backend services
  • Familiarity with modern frontend technologies including React
  • Strong communication and collaboration skills in cross-functional environments
  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience

Desired Skills & Experience

  • Experience at recognized technology companies or product-focused engineering organizations
  • Background working at startups whose products solve infrastructure, database, analytics, observability, billing, or scalability challenges
  • Experience with real-time data infrastructure technologies such as:
    • Kafka
    • ClickHouse
    • Apache Flink
    • Apache Spark
    • Similar streaming or data processing platforms
  • Experience building analytics, customer data, platform, or infrastructure products
  • Exposure to event-driven architectures and streaming systems
  • Experience mentoring engineers and driving technical strategy
  • Strong understanding of database internals, data modeling, and performance optimization
  • AI/ML product experience is a plus
What You Will Be Doing Tech Breakdown

  • 50% TypeScript / Node.js Backend Engineering
  • 20% AWS Infrastructure & Cloud Architecture
  • 15% Distributed Systems & Scalability Initiatives
  • 10% React Application Development
  • 5% Technical Leadership & Mentorship

Daily Responsibilities

  • 40% Designing and building scalable backend services
  • 20% Improving system performance, reliability, and latency
  • 15% Building and enhancing cloud-native infrastructure on AWS
  • 15% Collaborating with product and engineering teams on new features
  • 10% Architecture reviews, mentoring, and technical leadership

Interview Focus Areas / Candidate Evaluation

Candidates Should Be Prepared To Discuss

  • Specific scalability and performance metrics they have owned or influenced
    • Throughput such as 1,000 queries, requests, or entities processed per second
    • Latency improvements and measurable reductions in p95/p99 response times
    • Reliability, availability, and operational metrics
  • Real-time data infrastructure experience
    • Kafka
    • ClickHouse
    • Flink
    • Spark
    • Other large-scale streaming or analytical data platforms
  • Ownership experience
    • Managing production databases
    • Operating mission-critical backend services
    • Scaling distributed systems in production environments
  • Architectural decisions and tradeoffs made while scaling products and infrastructure
Ideal Backgrounds

Candidates May Come From

  • Product engineering teams at well-known technology companies
  • Developer tools companies
  • Data infrastructure and analytics companies
  • Database platforms
  • Observability platforms
  • Usage-based billing platforms
  • Customer data platforms
  • High-growth SaaS startups with significant scaling challenges

Examples of relevant company profiles include industry-leading technology organizations similar to online marketplaces, analytics platforms, developer tooling companies, infrastructure providers, and cloud-native software businesses.

The Offer

  • Competitive base salary: [Enter Compensation Range]
  • Equity package
  • Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage
  • 401(k) program
  • Flexible PTO
  • Hybrid Boston office environment
  • Opportunity to help build and influence a growing engineering organization
  • Exposure to cutting-edge AI and customer data technologies
  • Career growth into senior technical leadership and architectural ownership roles

Posted By: Maxwell Everson

Salary.com Estimation for Staff Software Engineer in Cambridge, MA
$116,681 to $141,987
If your compensation planning software is too rigid to deploy winning incentive strategies, it’s time to find an adaptable solution. Compensation Planning
Enhance your organization's compensation strategy with salary data sets that HR and team managers can use to pay your staff right. Surveys & Data Sets

What is the career path for a Staff Software Engineer?

Sign up to receive alerts about other jobs on the Staff Software Engineer career path by checking the boxes next to the positions that interest you.
Income Estimation: 
$97,257 - $120,701
Income Estimation: 
$123,167 - $152,295
Income Estimation: 
$111,369 - $141,168
Income Estimation: 
$131,745 - $167,716
Income Estimation: 
$144,503 - $184,592
Income Estimation: 
$102,541 - $137,871
Income Estimation: 
$153,752 - $200,235
Employees: Get a Salary Increase
View Core, Job Family, and Industry Job Skills and Competency Data for more than 15,000 Job Titles Skills Library

Job openings at Motion Recruitment

  • Motion Recruitment Lancaster, SC
  • This organization, a well-established player in manufacturing and enterprise operations, is seeking a Senior Systems Administrator to join its team in Lanc... more
  • 7 Days Ago

  • Motion Recruitment Minneapolis, MN
  • A SaaS company that provides customer operating systems for financial services organizations is looking for a Software Engineering Manager to join their te... more
  • 7 Days Ago

  • Motion Recruitment Minneapolis, MN
  • An established software company serving the financial services industry is seeking a Senior Engineering Manager to lead multiple product engineering teams ... more
  • 7 Days Ago

  • Motion Recruitment Twin Lakes, WI
  • Our client, a global company that handles claims administration, loss adjusting, and benefits administration, is actively looking for a SaaS Administrator ... more
  • 7 Days Ago


Not the job you're looking for? Here are some other Staff Software Engineer jobs in the Cambridge, MA area that may be a better fit.

  • Anduril Industries Boston, MA
  • Anduril Industries is a defense technology company with a mission to transform U.S. and allied military capabilities with advanced technology. By bringing ... more
  • 9 Days Ago

  • Capital One Cambridge, MA
  • As a Staff Engineer at Capital One, you will be a part of a community of technical experts working to define the future of banking in the cloud. You will w... more
  • Just Posted

AI Assistant is available now!

Feel free to start your new journey!