Medium · 2 months ago
Principal Backend Engineer
United States
Full-time
Remote
Lead/Staff
$230K/yr - $300K/yr
10+ years expMedium is on a mission to deepen understanding of the world and spread ideas that matter. They are seeking an experienced Principal Backend Engineer to lead the evolution of their platform and product, focusing on designing and scaling distributed systems while mentoring other engineers.
InternetNewsPublishingTour OperatorTourism
Responsibilities
Own the architecture for large-scale, complex product projects
Own the implementation of critical features and systems, ensuring their ongoing health, scalability, and efficiency, while improving and modernizing the surrounding ecosystems
Work with engineering, design, and product leadership to evolve existing features and innovate in new directions
Lead efforts to improve engineering standards, tools, frameworks, and processes
Mentor and develop other engineers on the team
Attend Medium’s twice-yearly, in-person offsites (hosted in locations around the U.S.)
Qualification
Required
Proven track record leveraging strong backend engineering fundamentals to build and ship distributed systems that power world-class products
Track record of mentoring and teaching the people around you
Ability to embrace ambiguity and formulate go forward plans
Product minded and can lead a group from ideation to MVP to a polished production implementation
Understanding that every choice comes with tradeoffs and can make decisions under ambiguity
Ability to ramp quickly on unfamiliar, complex problems to drive effective solutions on tight timelines
Attention to detail regarding latency, data correctness, observability, cost, and operational excellence
Ability to give and receive direct feedback early and often
Focus on outcomes, not egos, and can respond without defensiveness
Care about and contribute to the culture of the team
Preferred
10+ years of experience as a software engineer building large-scale distributed backend systems
Expert-level proficiency in Go
Experience designing systems leveraging AWS, Kafka, GraphQL, Kubernetes, and Datadog
Experience operating at Medium's product/user scale (millions of users; continuous delivery; feature flags)
Experience modernizing legacy code bases
Experience utilizing modern AI tooling to accelerate development efforts
Personal experience using Medium and excitement to contribute to Medium's mission
Benefits
Healthcare benefits covered at 100% for employees and 70% for dependents.
Generous parental leave policy & child education stipend.
Mental health support through Talkspace.
Financial wellness support through Northstar.
Stipends for wellness, co-working, professional development, wifi and a one-time home office bonus.
Unlimited PTO and standard company holidays.
A discounted Medium membership!
Company
Medium
Medium is a social publishing network that connects ideas and perspectives on topics that matter.
51-200 employees
H1B Sponsorship
Medium has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2023 (2)
2022 (1)
2021 (7)
2020 (1)
Funding
Current Stage
Growth StageTotal Funding
$162.97MKey Investors
Spark CapitalAndreessen HorowitzGreylock
2021-11-18Series Unknown· $30.97M
2016-04-21Series C· $50M
2015-09-29Series B· $57M
Leadership Team
Scott Lamb
VP, Content
Recent News
Medium
2025-12-05
medium.com
2025-12-05
2025-12-05
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