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Backend Engineer

San Francisco, CA

Position Overview

We are seeking a Backend Engineer to design, develop, and maintain robust and scalable backend services for our IoT platform. 

We are a small, agile team passionate about delivering high-quality experiences across on-device firmware, backend systems, and mobile apps. These experiences enable our customers to interact with Fellow’s connected coffee products. You will be responsible for the development, maintenance, and optimization of our backend systems and IoT infrastructure. Your role will be critical in the efficient link between our hardware devices and our Mobile App. 

The Backend Engineer will accomplish all of this while living out Fellowship Thinking, our leadership principles:

  • Fellowship Thinking centers our customers, always.
  • Fellowship Thinking views all goals as shared.
  • Fellowship Thinking never stops improving.
  • Fellowship Thinking says “yes, if”.
  • Fellowship Thinking deliberately seeks equity. 

 

This position is required to be in the Bay Area as this is a hybrid position, 3 days in our San Francisco office each week.

Responsibilities

  • Backend Services: Design, develop, and maintain robust and scalable backend services for our IoT platform. Architect and deploy solutions on cloud platforms, particularly AWS, leveraging services like EC2, S3, Lambda.
  • Service Management: Implement and manage AWS IoT Core and related services (e.g., Device Gateway, Message Broker, Rules Engine, Shadow).
  • OTA Update Management: Oversee the end-to-end process of deploying progressive OTA firmware updates to connected IoT devices. Ensure that updates are secure, reliable, and efficient.
  • IoT Infrastructure: Manage our cloud infrastructure using AWS IoT services, ensuring secure and scalable connectivity for devices..
  • Monitoring and Performance: Monitor system performance, identify bottlenecks, and implement enhancements to improve efficiency, reliability and cost. 
  • Proactively address issues before they impact operations.
  • DevOps Pipeline Management: Design, develop, and maintain CI/CD pipelines to streamline code integration, testing, and deployment across mobile apps and IoT on-device firmware.
  • Collaboration: Work closely with the software development, product management, and QA teams to ensure that the entire development and release process is smooth and efficient. 
  • Security and Compliance: Ensure security best practices are followed throughout the DevOps lifecycle, especially when handling OTA updates and production infrastructure.
  • Understand the latest architecture approaches in secure IoT device provisioning and management for consumer hardware.  Make continued recommendations to evolve our designs.
  • Identify potential risks in software development and create strategies to mitigate them, ensuring the safety and efficacy of our appliances.

 

Requirements

  • 4+ years of experience in backend engineering, with experience in TypeScript/Node.js
  • Experience with common Node.js frameworks and libraries like Express.js and NestJS. 
  • Experience with scalable database designs, preferably PostgreSQL
  • API Development using REST and GraphQL
  • Strong understanding of CI/CD pipelines
  • Hands-on experience with AWS IoT or similar IoT cloud services, including device management, OTA updates, and secure communication protocols.
  • Experience with AWS elastic cloud services 
  • Familiarity with Ubuntu Docker Images 

Preferred Skills:

  • Experience with MQTT or other IoT communication protocols.
  • Familiarity with testing and validation for IoT hardware devices.
  • Experience with e-commerce integrations 
  • Experience with mobile app deployment, managing updates and mapping compatibility between on-device firmware and new mobile app capabilities.
  • Familiarity with security practices for IoT devices and systems, including encryption, secure boot, and TLS/SSL protocols.
  • Familiarity with hardware interfaces and programming for flashing firmware to embedded devices.

Education

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.

Benefits

  • Competitive compensation including employee equity plan
  • Generous paid time off plan
  • 401k with company contribution after 6 months of employment
  • Medical/dental/vision insurance
  • Monthly Fitness Stipend
  • Paid Parental Leave
  • Better Yourself Wellness credit & Better Your Community donation matching
  • Generous discount on Fellow products
  • Best coffee anywhere

 

Salary Range: $140,000 - $155,000

 

Our highest goal at Fellow is creating a safe, inclusive, and rewarding environment where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and thrive. We are committed to building diverse teams and strongly encourage people from underrepresented groups, including but not limited to women, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, people with disabilities, members of ethnic minorities, foreign-born residents, and veterans to apply. 

Fellow is an equal opportunity employer. Applicants will not be discriminated against because of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, religion, national origin, citizenship status, disability, ancestry, marital status, veteran status, medical condition or any protected category prohibited by local, state or federal laws.

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