Senior Backend Engineer, Platform

San Jose, California, United StatesFull TimeSenior$126,700–$150,000 /yrPosted 2 months ago

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Role summary

Seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to build the connector framework and ingestion services for a foundational data platform. This role involves writing production Go services for large-scale data reconciliation, transforming raw API responses into canonical entities, and managing the system of record for external system interactions. Responsibilities include developing reusable connector plumbing, designing data mapping logic, implementing reliability and replayability features, optimizing performance, and defining observability metrics. The ideal candidate has 6+ years of backend experience with Go, PostgreSQL, distributed systems, data integrity, delta synchronization, and cloud-native deployments.

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

This role is responsible for building the connector framework and ingestion services that power a foundational data and services platform that unifies enterprise systems into a canonical model. This is not a low-code integration role. You will write production Go services that handle data reconciliation at scale. Our architecture follows a specific pattern: we fetch and store raw API responses for debugging and replay, then transform them into canonical entities. You are responsible for the "system of record" for how our platform interacts with external source systems.

Responsibilities

Framework Engineering: Build the reusable plumbing for connectors—including authentication, circuit breaking, retries, and idempotency—so that adding a new data source focuses exclusively on data logic.

Canonical Mapping: Design the logic to map inconsistent enterprise data (Finance, HR, etc.) into strongly-typed entities. This includes handling multi-source enrichment, unit normalization, and field-level provenance.

Reliability: Implement synchronization strategies with watermark management to ensure the system recovers gracefully from failures without data loss or duplication.

Replayability: Build infrastructure to store raw API responses allowing the system to re-process data from local storage when mapping logic evolves, without re-querying source APIs.

Performance: Optimize for high-volume synchronization, focusing on PostgreSQL performance, concurrent fetching, and batch upserts.

Observability: Define and monitor metrics for throughput, data drift, and error rates to identify issues before they impact downstream applications.

Collaboration: Collaborate with platform architect on schema evolution, entity contracts, and the boundary between what connectors own and what the platform layer handles

Qualifications

Required:

6+ years in backend engineering: Experience building and operating distributed systems in production.

Go (or similar): Proficiency with strong typing and concurrency.

PostgreSQL Expertise: Strong understanding of schema design, indexing strategies, and performance tuning

Distributed systems: Experience designing and operating distributed systems

Data Integrity: Experience implementing idempotent systems, dead-letter queues, and backpressure management.

Delta syncs: Experience designing incremental and delta synchronization mechanisms with watermark tracking and safe recovery from mid-sync failures

Cloud Native: Experience deploying and managing services in AWS or similar environments.

Preferred:

Enterprise Integration: Experience building custom integration frameworks or working with complex ERP/HR APIs (SAP, Workday, etc.).

Systems Architecture: Understanding of when to utilize polling versus event-driven patterns (CDC/Kafka).

AI-Ready Data: Experience structuring data to be consumed by downstream AI/LLM services.

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 $126,700 - $150,000. Actual compensation offered will be determined by factors such as job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

Archer is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodations to job applicants with physical or mental disabilities, and those with sincerely held religious beliefs. Applicants who may require reasonable accommodation for any part of the application or hiring process should provide their name and contact information to Archer’s People Team at people@archer.com. Reasonable accommodations will be determined on a case-by-case basis.

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 People@archer.com. All employment processes are managed by the Archer People Team.

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