Software Engineer, Backend (Platform)

Hex is a company focused on building a web-based notebook and app authoring platform, and they are seeking a Senior or Staff-level software engineer to join their Backend Platform team. The role involves building and maintaining Hex's core compute platform, ensuring it is easy to use and performant while working on complex projects across the stack.

Responsibilities:

• On the Backend Platform team you’ll work on projects with high technical complexity and spanning across the stack, from our backend data systems to the frontend of Hex’s collaborative notebook interface
• Using DuckDB to enable seamless data interoperability between Python and SQL code written by our users or AI agents
• Building intelligent caching systems to speed up customer data queries
• Implementing a graph-based dependency framework for optimizing multi-step execution plans
• Instrumenting complex, multi-language systems to identify performance bottlenecks
• Building visualizations into the product to help users understand the performance characteristics of their code

Requirements:

• 6+ years of engineering experience working on complex, data-driven systems or applications
• Expert-level understanding of Python, SQL, jupyter kernels, and/or data warehousing systems
• Deeply informed on industry trends around data processing, databases, and performant data architectures
• You love diving into highly complex codebases and have a passion for designing elegant abstractions that improve correctness and developer productivity
• An inexhaustible desire to understand where every millisecond of time could be going
• An instinct for strategic thinking and aligning with business and product goals while keeping a healthy balance of velocity and engineering excellence
• Experience working in a remote-first team and strong communication skills in this context