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Senior/Staff Backend Engineer
Zonos
- St. George, Utah, United States
- St. George, Utah, United States
About
Overview We're hiring engineers who build things customers actually use. The title says "backend," but what we want first is a product-minded problem solver who happens to be excellent at backend systems. We’re looking for someone who cares more about whether a feature ships and works than about which framework got them there. The systems we build are real-time, mission-critical, and genuinely complex.
Our backend runs primarily on Java/JVM.
How We're Organized We don't have product managers. At the senior and staff level, you talk to customers directly, understand their problems, decide what to build, and ship it. That's not a side responsibility; it's the job.
In practice, that means:
Prioritization happens at the initiative level. Engineering is organized into a small number of initiatives, each with a named owner and tech lead who set direction and resolve roadmap conflicts. You're not prioritizing in a vacuum, but you do own what gets built inside your area.
Saying no is part of the job. Customers and internal stakeholders will ask for things. Part of being senior here is having the judgment to push back, propose alternatives, or escalate when trade‑offs need a wider conversation.
You're supported on customer work, not thrown into it. Customer success, sales engineering, and support handle the front line. When you join a customer call, it's because the problem needs an engineer in the room, not because you're running the account.
Conflicts go to the tech leads and CTO. Disagreements about architecture, scope, or priority don't fester. We resolve them quickly, in writing, with clear owners.
If you've worked in environments where PM hand‑offs slowed you down or watered down the product, you'll recognize why we do it this way. If you've never owned the full loop before, this will be a stretch — and that's fine, as long as you're hungry for it.
Working with Agentic Tools Agentic development has changed what senior engineering looks like day-to-day. We're not throwing out craft. If anything, the bar on judgment, architecture, and verification has gone up. But the mechanics have shifted: more time spent specifying problems clearly, reviewing generated code with a critical eye, and catching the subtle failure modes that agents miss. Less time on boilerplate.
The engineers doing the best work here treat agents the way a strong senior treats a sharp but inexperienced teammate: delegate the right things, verify carefully, and own the outcome. They also understand that LLM intelligence is jagged — brilliant in some places, naive in others — and have built the instincts to know when to trust the output and when to dig deeper.
We want engineers who've already adopted these tools, formed real opinions about where they help and where they don't, and can bring that experience to the team.
What You'll Do
Work directly with customers to understand problems worth solving — and decide which ones to solve
Design backend systems and APIs that scale to billions of transactions
Use agentic tools effectively to implement features, while holding a high bar on what ships
Own architecture and trade-off decisions in your domain (we use a Bronze/Silver/Gold blast-radius framework — you'll learn it fast)
Debug production issues across services, including the gnarly ones that require deep system understanding
Champion reliability, observability, and blast-radius awareness in everything you ship
Raise the bar in code review — for both human-written and agent-generated code
Mentor teammates on customer empathy, spec-driven development, and getting real leverage from agents
You Might Be a Great Fit If You...
Lead with product instinct. You ask "should we build this?" before "how do we build this?" — and you're comfortable getting on a call with a customer to find out.
Want to own the full loop: customer problem → spec → implementation → ship → follow‑up.
Are fluent in Java/JVM — or fluent enough to read, debug, and verify Java code at a senior level
Have integrated agentic tools (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.) into your daily workflow and have grounded opinions about what works and what doesn't
Are inquisitive by default — you read papers, try new tools, talk to customers, and bring ideas back to the team
Take ownership. When something breaks, you fix it. When something is unclear, you go find out.
Have e-commerce, payments, or international trade background — or are excited to go deep in the space
Want to live and work in sunny St. George, Utah, with a real work-life balance
What we offer:
$130,000 to $200,000+ - Actual salaries will vary based on various factors such as education, experience, training, scope, etc. The salary noted is just one component of our total compensation package.
Medical, Dental, Vision, & Life - we pay 100% of the employee premium!
Paid parental leave and other life event leave
401k retirement plan with generous company match
Flexible time off - we require all our Zonuts to take a minimum of 2 weeks off per year. Take some time to relax!
Employee Assistance Program
1 month paid time off at 5 year anniversary
Office stocked with snacks and drinks + weekly team lunch
Weekly company lunch
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Languages
- English
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