[Hiring] Senior Software Engineer I - Backend @Octave

Role Description

The Sr. Engineer I - Backend plays a key role in designing, building, and maintaining robust, scalable systems that support clients seeking care, providers delivering care, and the operational infrastructure that enables them. As a senior member of our growing team, you will work remotely, leveraging Python (Django/FastAPI), gRPC, and GraphQL to architect and implement backend services, streamline operations, and maintain integrations with a variety of partners. You will take ownership of significant features or subsystems, influence technical decisions, mentor peers, and help shape best practices across the team, all while contributing to mission-driven work in the healthcare space.

Responsibilities Include

• Technical skills:
  • Design, develop, and implement scalable and robust backend systems and APIs using Python.
  • Optimize database schemas, queries, and overall performance while maintaining security and data integrity.
  • Lead debugging, profiling, and monitoring of backend services, proactively identifying and addressing issues before they impact users.
  • Participate in technical design and architecture discussions, making well-reasoned tradeoffs for system performance, scalability, and maintainability without guidance.
  • Drive adoption of best practices for testing, code quality, documentation, and observability across backend systems.
  • Own features or subsystems end-to-end, from design through deployment and monitoring, ensuring robust, maintainable implementations.
  • Produce clean, readable, and well-tested code, making thoughtful decisions about when to add comments versus relying on self-documenting patterns.
  • Serve as a subject-matter expert in a portion of the backend domain, providing guidance, code review, and mentorship to other engineers.
• Teamwork:
  • Collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, and cross-functional teams to translate requirements into scalable backend solutions.
  • Partner with frontend and other teams to ensure seamless integration and high-quality delivery of full-stack features.
  • Mentor and support engineers through pairing, design reviews, and technical guidance.
  • Proactively surface risks, ambiguities, or technical limitations in project requirements, contributing to early course correction.
  • Communicate effectively, clearly, and concisely with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
  • Contribute to team practices, processes, and documentation to improve efficiency and knowledge sharing.

Qualifications

• Minimum of 5 years of experience building robust and scalable backend applications.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code and continuous deployment in production.
• Experience working with healthcare, healthcare technology, and clinical staff, or other regulated industries.
• Proficiency with gRPC, Protobuf, and other modern API protocols, including designing and integrating services across distributed systems.
• Experience with relational database systems like PostgreSQL or MySQL.
• Experience integrating and synchronizing data with third party APIs.
• Experience with continuous delivery and troubleshooting production code.
• Deep expertise in Python and at least one major web framework, with experience designing, building, and maintaining production-grade applications.
• Proven track record deploying and operating enterprise Python applications in production, with a focus on reliability, scalability, and maintainability.
• Strong commitment to writing high-quality, well-tested, and readable code, with a habit of improving codebases and processes over time.
• Proficiency in debugging, monitoring, and optimizing systems, and the ability to make thoughtful architectural decisions in complex domains.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills, able to partner with engineers, clinical staff, and operations teams to solve open-ended problems and deliver impactful solutions.
• Passion for mission-driven work, with an interest in applying engineering skills to improve healthcare systems and outcomes.
• Experience mentoring or guiding peers, providing technical leadership, and helping the team adopt best practices and thoughtful processes.
• Ability to take ownership of significant features or subsystems, drive them to completion, and proactively identify opportunities for improvement.

Benefits

• Company sponsored life insurance, disability and AD&D plans.
• Voluntary benefits such as 401k retirement, medical, dental, vision, FSA, HSA, dependent care and commuter/parking options.
• Generous Paid Time Off and paid parental leave benefits.

Physical Requirements

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to frequently communicate with others through virtual meeting applications such as Zoom and Google Meet.
• Must be able to observe and communicate information on company provided laptop.
• Move up to 10 pounds on occasion.
• Must be eligible to work in the United States without sponsorship now or in the future.

Compensation

Octave is committed to pay equity. To maintain our commitment to pay equity, Octave will follow Pay Transparency regulations on all open job postings. The expected salary range for this role is:

• Geo 1 (all states, excluding those in Geo 2 or Geo 3, and D.C.): $142,600 - $153,100.
• Geo 2 (CO, HI, MD, RI): $156,900 - $168,400.
• Geo 3 (AK, CA, CT, MA, NJ, NY, WA): $164,000 - $176,000.

All zones are eligible for equity in the form of stock options.

Application Instructions

Please complete the following application. Please note that the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Information questions below are used for the purposes of EEOC reporting and are optional to complete. Octave is committed to an inclusive workplace environment, and this information will not inform how we approach hiring or employment.