We’re Hiring a Principal Backend Engineer to Shape the Future of Medium
When I joined Medium, it was because I still believe in the internet as a place for ideas. Not noise, not outrage, but content that connects people through shared curiosity.
Medium’s mission is to deepen understanding and spread ideas that matter. We’re building the best place for reading and writing online: A space that rewards clarity, authenticity, and craft over clickbait and engagement hacks.
That vision only works if the technology beneath it is as thoughtful as the writing above it. That’s where you come in. Yes, you!
The Role
We are starting the search for a Principal Backend Engineer at Medium, our most senior IC level and a leadership position at the company. In this role, you will lead the evolution of Medium’s core backend, the systems that power reading, writing, and discovery for millions of users every day.
This is a deeply hands-on, high-impact role. You’ll help craft the strategy for where we want to be as an engineering organization on the backend, and be accountable for the quality, standards, and evolution of the Medium backend platform.
You will:
- Partner with engineering, design, data, and executive leadership to define and deliver the future of Medium.
- Make our platform not just reliable, but genuinely delightful to build on.
- Modernize a large, living codebase so our teams can move faster and ship with confidence.
- Lead through influence by setting standards, reviewing critical code and designs, and mentoring engineers across teams.
- Shape how we build, ensuring our architecture, practices, and systems are strong, scalable, and aligned with Medium’s long-term goals.
- Balance vision with execution by building, debugging, and refining systems yourself to model technical excellence and thoughtful engineering craft.
And you can do this work wherever you do your best thinking, whether that’s a home office, a beachside Airbnb, a rainy coastal cabin in the Pacific Northwest, or your favorite café with great Wi-Fi and even better croissants. This role is fully remote in the US.
https://hackmd.io/@alexaa34/rJ3bwADF-e
Why This Role Matters
I’ve been lucky enough to work with some truly great Principal Engineers in my career, the kind of people who bend the trajectory of a company. They don’t just write brilliant code, they change how everyone around them thinks about building. They spot patterns before they calcify into problems, simplify where others complicate, and bring calm, clear reasoning to complex systems and high-stakes decisions. When they get it right, everyone moves faster, builds better, and understands the system (and the mission) more deeply.
About You
You find joy in making complex systems feel simple, in building things that help others move faster and think deeper. You leave codebases better than you found them, teams more confident than before you joined them, and products more human in how they behave.
You’ve built and scaled systems that millions rely on, and you’ve learned that reliability isn’t just uptime, it’s trust. You’ve wrestled with technical debt, fan-outs, and edge cases galore, and found ways to turn them into leverage, not legacy.
You lead with curiosity, not control. You ask great questions, create shared understanding, and help others see the system as clearly as you do.
And through it all, you never forget who it’s for: the writers and readers who come to Medium to make sense of the world.
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