Backend Engineer - Engagement

About us

Alpha is a product studio focused on the intersection of AI and consumer social — well-funded by a16z and many of the world's top investors. Our mission is to give everyone a life filled with rich and meaningful friendships.

Our flagship product, Clubhouse, pioneered social audio and has created meaningful connections in 200+ countries. We believe voice is the most human form of connection, and AI is about to make it even more extraordinary — we’re well-positioned to lead the next frontier.

We have a lean, high-impact, high-ownership team. We’re 100% remote, founder-led, and product-driven — with a huge, ambitious vision and the right team to make it happen.

The role

We’re hiring a mid-level Backend Engineer (IC3) for our Engagement squad, the team that owns the core Clubhouse experience: live audio rooms, reactions, clipping great moments, houses where communities gather, and the experience of forming and keeping a group of friends together.

The squad’s mission is to turn talking with friends into a weekly habit. We get new users into their first great conversation, keep friend groups coming back week after week, and bring back the ones who drop. When those numbers move, it’s usually because of work this team shipped.

This is a high-leverage seat. You’ll be one of a handful of backend engineers on a small squad with iOS and Android engineers, working directly with product, design, and data science. Your work goes out to millions of people, and you’ll see in the data how it changed the way they connect. Small team, short feedback loops, and a lot of room to own big pieces of the product.

We are a fully remote company with a strong commitment to ensuring you will do great work here and have the best professional experience of your life. This role is open to candidates across the U.S.

Who you are

• You have a solid backend foundation. You have 3+ years of backend experience in a language like Python or similar, and you’ve worked with relational and/or NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, DynamoDB). You want to grow your technical craft and your systems thinking.
  

• You build with AI. You use AI coding tools every day and have opinions on where they help and where they don’t. You’re excited to ship AI-powered features in voice.
  

• You own your work. Once you pick something up, you see it through to the end. You get yourself unstuck, you’re comfortable with ambiguity, and you know when to pull in help.
  

• You move fast and care about outcomes. You ship quickly and pick the right level of solution: an MVP when we need to learn, something sturdier when we’re building on it. You care whether what you build changes how people use the app and how it shows up in engagement and retention.
  

• You’re a clear, low-ego collaborator. You keep engineers, product, and your manager in the loop, explain tradeoffs in plain terms, and raise risks early. You change your mind when the data says to and look for the best solution no matter whose idea it is.

What you will do

• Build, instrument, and ship features across live rooms, reactions, clips, houses, and replays, all used by millions of people. When a launch calls for an experiment, you’ll run it with our data scientists.
  

• Evolve our backend systems, balancing quick iteration with code health and scalability.
  

• Collaborate closely with engineers, PMs, designers, and data scientists to shape and deliver high-impact features.
  

• Advocate for simplicity by making thoughtful tradeoffs that keep solutions maintainable and measurable.

If you are a talented, ambitious builder and think you might be a good fit, we'd love to talk.

Our company is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or make any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [email protected].