Senior Staff Backend Engineer, Platform Core at Archer56

Archer is an aerospace company based in San Jose, California building an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft with a mission to advance the benefits of sustainable air mobility. We are designing, manufacturing, and operating an all-electric aircraft that can carry four passengers while producing minimal noise. Our sights are set high and our problems are hard, and we believe that diversity in the workplace is what makes us smarter, drives better insights, and will ultimately lift us all to success. We are dedicated to cultivating an equitable and inclusive environment that embraces our differences, and supports and celebrates all of our team members. Role Overview As a Senior Staff Backend Engineer on the Platform Core team, you will build the services that power the platform foundation — the Entity Registry, change tracking, typed source system connectors, and the integration infrastructure that every application depends on. This role focuses on Go backend services, PostgreSQL performance, and building durable infrastructure that application teams program against through the Platform SDK. Responsibilities • Build and maintain core backend services (Go preferred) • Build scalable systems that use a range of inter-process communication mechanisms (blackboard, direct, queues, etc.) • Build common data models from diverse data sources • Build APIs and SDKs that accelerate application development • Design and optimize PostgreSQL schemas for performance and evolution • Define and implement strongly typed reusable APIs (gRPC/protobuf or REST/OpenAPI) • Develop entity CRUD, search, and traversal capabilities • Implement change tracking and event propagation patterns (e.g., outbox pattern) • Optimize database performance (indexing strategy, query planning, connection management) • Implement middleware for authentication, authorization, rate limiting, and audit logging • Contribute to observability, reliability, and CI/CD standards • Collaborate with platform and application teams to validate services in production use cases • Support AI-assisted workflows by exposing clean, structured APIs suitable for controlled automation Required Qualifications • 10+ years backend engineering experience • Strong hands-on experience in Go (or equivalent backend experience with willingness to work in Go) • Deep expertise with relational databases, ideally PostgreSQL, to include: • Schema design • Performance tuning • Indexing strategies • Query plan analysis • Experience building and operating distributed systems • Experience defining and implementing typed service contracts • AWS or other cloud-native infrastructure experience • Strong understanding of reliability patterns (idempotency, retries, consistency) • Demonstrated experience defining and developing APIs and SDKs Preferred Qualifications • Experience building typed connectors or integration services against enterprise APIs (OData, REST, SCIM) • Experience with JSONB modeling or complex relational traversal patterns • Experience with gRPC and protobuf • Experience with change data capture (CDC) or event streaming • Experience implementing policy-as-code authorization (Cerbos, OPA, or similar) • Kubernetes (EKS) and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) familiarity • Experience building services consumed by LLM pipelines or AI-assisted workflows Please note that this job description is intended to provide a general overview of the position and does not include an exhaustive list of responsibilities and qualifications At Archer we aim to attract, retain, and motivate talent that possess the skills and leadership necessary to grow our business. We drive a pay-for-performance culture and reward performance that supports the Company’s business strategy. For this position we are targeting a base pay between $182,500 - $220,000. Actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as job-related knowledge, skills, and experience. Information collected and processed as part of any job applications you choose to submit is subject to Archer's Candidate Privacy Policy. Archer is unable to provide work visa sponsorship for this position at the present time. Archer is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusivity in the workplace. All aspects of employment are decided on the basis of merit, qualifications, and business needs. We do not discriminate based upon race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by federal, state or local laws. Archer Aviation does not engage with external recruiting agencies/individual recruiters with whom it does not have a prior written agreement. Archer reserves the right to make use of any unsolicited resumes that it receives and bears no responsibility for payment of any fees asserted from the use of unsolicited resumes. If you are a recruiting agency or individual recruiter wishing to do business with Archer, please reach out to [Upgrade to PRO to see contact]. All employment processes are managed by the Archer People Team.