Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer — Remote About Pulse Labs Pulse Labs, backed by Google and Amazon, is a leading UX research firm at the forefront of product development. Our mission is to deliver insightful, actionable feedback across every stage of the product lifecycle — from conception through launch and beyond — empowering top tech companies to build groundbreaking products across mobile, smart home, wearables, and automotive. The Role We're looking for an exceptional Senior Backend Engineer to join our core engineering team. You'll be working alongside engineers from leading technology companies and top research institutions — and we're looking for someone who will raise that bar further. If you thrive in fast-paced, ever-changing environments and are energized by solving hard technical problems at scale, this role offers both significant responsibility and the opportunity to shape Pulse Labs' strategic direction from the ground up. We build iteratively, with a strong user focus and a commitment to using the right technology for the job. Responsibilities Design, implement, and maintain software to the demanding standards of a real-time, highly concurrent distributed system. Work alongside the engineering team to architect and build a high-performance, stable, scalable, and extensible backend that supports the full Pulse Labs organization. Basic Qualifications 7+ years of experience as a software engineer, with strong proficiency in Java and Node.js. Proven ability to write clean, modular, well-documented code. Experience implementing and operating mission-critical systems. Proficient in Linux, high-performance computing, and networking. Solid understanding of distributed systems engineering, RESTful APIs, and WebSockets. Strong communicator and effective collaborator. Self-driven, organized, and comfortable operating with autonomy. Preferred Qualifications MSc or PhD from a leading university in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related quantitative field. Prior experience at a high-growth technology company or top-tier research or engineering organization. Experience building testing or analytics tools. Knowledge of real-time audio and video streaming. Prior development work on a major analytics platform.