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Craft Ventures Portfolio Job Board

Staff Backend Engineer

OpenPhone

OpenPhone

Software Engineering
Canada · United States · Remote
USD 188k-208k / year + Equity
Posted on Oct 8, 2025
Staff Backend Engineer
Remote - United States & Canada
Engineering
Remote
Full-time
For millions of teams working in dozens of industries, day-to-day business gets done on the phone. So why — despite the huge leaps we've taken in design and usability — does most business phone software still look, feel, and act like it was born in the 90s? Quo is changing that.
We’re a new type of business phone with a mission to help people communicate better and be more productive.
We’re backed by Y Combinator and some of the best venture firms around including Tiger Global, Craft Ventures, Slow Ventures, and others. We take pride in providing an exceptional customer experience and a product people love, which is why we’re excited that our customers have rated us the #1 VoIP Provider on G2.
Quo is the modern, sophisticated answer to the clunky, outdated phone systems that have been slowing down businesses for years. With thousands of happy customers and several rounds of funding in just five years, it's safe to say we're onto something big.

About the role

Quo’s teams power key systems that help thousands of businesses communicate better. As a Staff Backend Engineer, you will own the technical strategy for how we design, build, and operate features across the product. You’ll partner closely with leaders across engineering, product, and security to translate ambitious product ideas into scalable, dependable systems. Your architectural choices will shape key customer experiences and you’ll be trusted to balance cutting-edge innovation with rock-solid reliability.

Some of the things you’ll do:

  • Design and own the long-term architecture for key systems - such as billing services or communication services.
  • Lead cross-functional delivery of features from proof of concept to production rollout, partnering with others in engineering, product, design, and CX.
  • Establish and drive continuous cost, performance, reliability, and security improvements for our systems.
  • Mentor engineers through design reviews, code reviews, and technical coaching, raising the bar for excellence across teams.
  • Stay current on advances in AI and other emerging technologies with best practices, translating insights into actionable roadmap proposals.

Tech Stack & Tools:

  • Our backend is built on Node using Typescript.
  • Our AI Infrastructure uses temporal.io, vector DBs, libraries like Langchain and top-tier llm models.
  • We use Kubernetes on AWS to orchestrate our infrastructure setup and deployment.
  • The overall architecture is event-driven microservices with RabbitMQ at the center of it.
  • We use a variety of databases for different purposes: Postgres, Mongo, Elastic, and Redis.
  • We have the following clients - Web (React), Android and iOS.
  • We use Kong as our public API Gateway.
  • Observability Tools: Datadog
  • Other Tools: Figma, Linear, Notion, and Slack


About you

  • Proven success leading architecture for business-critical services, balancing innovation with operational pragmatism.
  • Expertise in event-driven and streaming architectures; you can reason about concurrency, ordering, and back-pressure under load.
  • Track record of driving cost optimization, observability, and incident response.
  • Excellent written and verbal communicator who aligns diverse stakeholders and produces clear, thorough design docs.
  • Collaborative leader who mentors others, fosters psychological safety, and elevates the entire engineering organization.
  • Comfortable with ambiguity, you break down complex problems, make informed trade-offs, and deliver iterative value quickly.
  • Empathetic and customer-focused, you balance technical decisions with user experience and business impact.


Compensation

The annual base salary range for this position in the US is $188,000 - $208,000 USD, and in Canada is $215,000 - $237,000 CAD, plus equity and benefits. This range is designed to align with market rates in areas where we are actively recruiting across the US and Canada.
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.
The base pay range for this role is CA$215,000-CA$237,000 per year.

Who we are

As a fully remote company, we thrive asynchronously as a team. We are curious, ambitious, and dedicated to our work. We value trust above all else, and have a strong bias for action. If you're looking for a place to do your life's work, please get in touch. We'd love to hear from you.
And remember, there's no such thing as a 'perfect' candidate. We're looking for optimists with grit and determination, who are excited to face the challenges of a growing startup. Quo is the type of company where you can grow, and we encourage you to apply for this role even if you don't think you meet all the requirements.
We are committed to creating an inclusive and diverse work environment. It is important that you are able to bring your authentic self to work every day. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. #LI-Remote
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Req ID: R26