Senior Software Engineer (Backend) at Rally UXR (W22)
$170K - $200K  •  0.10% - 0.50%
User Research CRM
US / CA / Remote (US; CA)
Full-time
Will sponsor
3+ years
About Rally UXR

Rally makes it easy for Product, Design, and UX Research teams to talk to their users.

We believe continuous user research is the key to uncovering real problems and honing in on the right solutions. We want to help companies get closer to their users so they can bring better products to market.

User Research is a nascent function at SaaS companies and growing 40% YoY. It’s an underserved segment of the market that relies on disjointed, manual tooling (i.e. spreadsheets) that drive massive inefficiencies in their workflow.

We’re starting by solving the most burning pain point in user research today: recruiting your own users for research. We’re doing this by building the world’s best User Research CRM - a platform that automates outreach, screening, scheduling, incentives, and participant tracking, all in one place.

Read more about our plans for the future of User Research here

About the role
Skills: GraphQL, Node.js, TypeScript, Kafka, SQL, Elasticsearch, Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Overview

At Rally, we believe talking to users is the most important way to build great products. That’s why we’ve built the most powerful User Research CRM used by teams at Google, Figma, GitLab, MongoDB, and more to streamline every step of the research process in one tool.

We’re a remote-first, Series A startup with a small, senior team of builders. While we have a rich remote first culture, we also invest in regular in-person offsites and a yearly remote office stipend.

As a Senior/Staff Backend Engineer, you’ll be key to scaling Rally’s core systems and services to power the next 100M+ participant records and billions of events we process.

You’ll own critical systems like Email/SMS, data sync pipelines, search, workflow automation, and help lay the foundation for AI features.

Our codebase is fully TypeScript, and while you don’t need experience with our exact stack, you should have strong JavaScript fundamentals and an eagerness to learn.

Why Join Rally?

You'll have the opportunity to define and evolve our backend architecture as we rapidly scale, directly impacting our growth. We're a senior team that values craftsmanship, and you'll play a crucial role in mentoring future engineers as we grow.

What you’ll do

  • Scale and evolve backend systems that manage hundreds of millions of participant records. Optimizing data pipelines, improving system responsiveness, and solving complex performance challenges as we grow.
  • Own and mature critical infrastructure such as email/SMS delivery, data syncing pipelines, search APIs, and workflow automation. Ensuring reliability, observability, and operational excellence as these systems grow in complexity and usage.
  • Drive the evolution from 1→10, improving existing services to handle greater scale, tighter reliability requirements, and deeper product integration. Not just building new features, but strengthening the platform beneath them.
  • Collaborate cross-functionally with design, marketing, sales, customer success, and the founding team to shape product direction and ensure engineering is aligned with user needs and business goals.
  • Lead with technical vision, identifying opportunities to reduce complexity, improve developer experience, and guide architectural decisions that support long-term growth.
  • Think platform first. You’ll design reusable systems and clear abstractions that power future products. We look for engineers who build with scale, flexibility, and long-term maintainability in mind.

Performance Expectations (First 3–6 Months)

  • Own a critical backend system and deliver measurable improvements in its performance, reliability, or scalability.
  • Propose, lead and implement an architectural enhancement aligning with our growth.
  • Influence technical direction through impactful code reviews, design discussions, and mentorship.
  • Collaborate effectively with engineering, product, and go-to-market stakeholders to ensure aligned execution.

Our Tech Stack Fullstack 

TypeScript, AWS with Terraform, Postgres, ElasticSearch, Kafka, Temporal 

Requirements 

  • You have deep experience developing and maintaining complex backend systems. 
  • You have experience working with Javascript/Typescript. 
  • You have experience building 1->10 infrastructure. 
  • You have experience leading a significant project or team of engineers. 

Bonus Points 

  • Familiarity with distributed systems patterns (e.g., microservices, event-driven architectures). 
  • Prior experience in a fast-paced startup environment.  
Interview Process

Interviewing at Rally

Our interview process at Rally consists of three main phases -- intro calls, technical interview, and a super day where you'll get to meet the whole team.

In the interview process, we'll be assessing your fit for the role and our culture.

Here's more details on the process.

Intro Call

Meet with a founder for an introduction call for 30 minutes.

Technical Interview

You will then conduct a 2 hour technical interview with two different engineers. Our coding exercises will be based on real problems we've faced at Rally rather than leetcode like questions.

For the product role, you'll be expected to use Javascript/Typescript to work across both the frontend and backend (API and DB level).

On Site

The last phase of the interview will be an "on site" with the full team (meeting over Zoom). You'll have 3 different calls with different members of our team. There won't be coding exercises in this part of the interview.

Other jobs at Rally UXR

fulltimeRemote (US)Product design$170K - $200K0.20% - 0.40%6+ years

fulltimeUS / Remote (US)$85K - $100K1+ years

fulltimeUS / Remote (US)$85K - $95K3+ years

fulltimeUS / Remote (US)$200K - $300K6+ years

fulltimeUS / Remote (US)$115K - $130K3+ years

fulltimeUS / CA / Remote (US; CA)Full stack$170K - $200K0.10% - 0.50%3+ years

fulltimeUS / Remote (US)$130K - $180K6+ years

fulltimeUS / Remote (US)$110K - $130K3+ years

Hundreds of YC startups are hiring on Work at a Startup.

Sign up to see more ›