Staff Software Engineer - Backend
Hive
San Francisco, CA · $200k–$300k a year · Posted October 27, 2026
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Where San Francisco, CA ranks
Where San Francisco, CA placed in our monthly rankings, month by month. Each month stays online at its own address.
November 2026
- #1Best cities for security jobs316 openings · of 20
- #1Best cities for technology jobs7,178 openings · of 100
- #1Best cities for financial services pay after cost of living$173k · of 33
- #1Best cities for entry-level jobs that want AI skills35% · of 100
- #1Best cities for entry-level jobs that want AI skills in the West Coast35% · of 54
- #1Cities with the most jobs that do not need a four-year degree in the West Coast902 jobs · of 47
Rankings about engineering jobs
- Best cities for software and engineering jobs #1 San Francisco (3,412 openings)
- Best cities for engineering pay after cost of living #1 San Mateo ($216k)
- Most requested AI skills in engineering jobs #1 AI tools in daily work (6.1%)
- AI tools named most often in engineering jobs #1 Claude (1.7%)
- Employers with the most engineering jobs #1 Amazon (2,992 roles)
Pay compared with the market
This listing pays about $250,000 a year. Across 426 open staff software engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $225,000 to $271,000 and the median is $242,500. That is inside the middle half of those listings, 3% above the median.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
Staff Software Engineer salaries by state · Check your own pay
How AI is used in this kind of work
Among software developers, AI is already used for some of the tasks. Measured exposure for software developers: 29% (some).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
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About the job
About Deploy
Deploy is an intelligence infrastructure platform that gives developers and enterprises access to open source and proprietary AI models. For leading open source LLMs, Deploy operates an optimized model inference engine that keeps costs and latency low while maintaining high throughput. Deploy also offers a set of proprietary AI models that address challenges in content safety, AI & deepfake detection, sponsorship intelligence, and IP & publicity protection. Trusted by the world's largest and most innovative organizations, Deploy's solutions unlock high-performance AI model inference at production scale.
Deploy has raised more than $200M from leading investors, including Tomales Bay Capital, General Catalyst, 8VC, Glynn Capital, Bain & Company, Visa Ventures, and others. The company has more than 250 employees across offices in San Francisco, Seattle, New York, and Delhi.
Staff Software Engineer
In order to execute our vision, we need to grow our team of best-in-class engineers. We are looking for developers who are excited about launching new products and features into production, who can work autonomously and aren’t afraid to try new technologies, and who don’t back down from the challenges of scale. Our ideal candidate has experience building core services and web-based APIs from the ground up, cares just as much about the product itself as the technology that powers it, and is capable of both structuring and writing clean, maintainable code.
Responsibilities
Design, implement or improve features in a variety of backend systems including our REST APIs, microservices, data ingestion and processing systems, and distributed task/job processing systems
Write and maintain scalable, performant and secure code that can be shared across platforms
Meaningfully contribute to the product and core backend systems by suggesting and executing improvements
Improve engineering standards, tooling, processes and security
Practice test-driven development
Debug production issues across services and multiple levels of the stack
Participate in on-call rotations, as needed, to ensure prompt and effective resolution of critical technical issues
Utilize OWASP top 10 techniques to secure code from vulnerabilities
Maintain awareness of industry best practices for data maintenance handling as it relates to your role
Adhere to policies, guidelines and procedures pertaining to the protection of information assets
Report actual or suspected security and/or policy violations/breaches to an appropriate authority
Minimum Requirements
You have a Bachelor's Degree in computer science or a related field
You have 8+ years of experience building web applications
You have successfully implemented highly-available distributed systems/microservices
You have delivered scalable backend APIs
You have strong interpersonal and communication skills with a bias towards action
Preferred Requirements
Master’s degree or PhD in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field
Hands on technical leadership experience leading project teams and setting technical direction
Experience architecting and developing solutions to ambiguous problems with significant impact
Interest and ability to learn other coding language
Who We Are
We are a group of ambitious individuals who are passionate about creating a revolutionary AI company. At Deploy, you will have a steep learning curve and an opportunity to contribute to one of the fastest growing AI start-ups in San Francisco. The work you do here will have a noticeable and direct impact on the development of the company.
Thank you for your interest in Deploy and we hope to meet you soon!
The current expected base salary for this position ranges from $200,000 - $300,000. Actual compensation may vary depending on a number of factors, including a candidate’s qualifications, skills, competencies and experience, and location. Base pay is one part of the total compensation package that is provided to compensate and recognize employees for their work; stock options may be offered in addition to the range provided here.