Backend Infrastructure Engineer

Backend Infrastructure Engineer

You'll work on the infrastructure that makes Firecrawl fast and reliable against a web that constantly changes and fights back. This is deep systems work: keeping success rates high against sites with aggressive defenses, managing the proxy layer that powers reliable data collection at scale, and pushing throughput and reliability under heavy, spiky load. When Firecrawl "just works" on a site that tries hard to stop it, that's this team. You'll own real infrastructure from day one, not tickets in a backlog.

Salary Range: $235,000–$260,000 USD/year (SF) / $217,000–$233,000 CAD/year (Toronto)

Equity Range: Competitive equity. Details shared during the process.

Location: San Francisco, CA (SF HQ) or Toronto, ON (Toronto Hub). On-site, five days a week.

Job Type: Full-Time

Experience: 3+ years in backend, networking, or infrastructure engineering

Work Authorization: Must be authorized to work in the United States or Canada. We're not able to sponsor US visas right now. For Canada, we'll consider sponsorship on a case-by-case basis through our Toronto Hub.

About Firecrawl

Firecrawl is the easiest way to turn the web into data AI agents can use. One API call converts any URL into clean, LLM-ready markdown or structured data. It's the boring-hard problem everyone building with LLMs eventually hits, solved.

We hit 8 figures in ARR in year one and more than doubled it in year two. We have 180k+ GitHub stars, putting us in the top 50 repositories of all time, and developers, agents, and category-defining AI companies build on us every day. Growth like this is rare, and we're just getting started.

We're a small team punching far above our weight, working out of SF HQ and our new Toronto Hub. Everyone here owns a real piece of the product and company, end to end, and runs it themselves. No hiding behind process or headcount.

This is a place for people who want to work at the frontier: an AI company building the infrastructure other AI companies run on, not one bolting AI onto an existing product. We move fast, go deep, and are building the tools superintelligence will rely on to gather data from the web.

What You'll Do

• Build and maintain the infrastructure that powers reliable data collection at scale

• Improve success rates against sites with aggressive defenses

• Own the health, rotation, and cost efficiency of the proxy layer

• Push throughput and reliability under heavy, spiky, real-world load

• Debug hard, intermittent failures across the stack and make them stay fixed

What We're Looking For

• You've worked on networking, proxies, or high-throughput backend systems

• You're relentless about reliability and comfortable in messy, adversarial problem spaces

• You can own a system end to end and keep it healthy in production

• You move fast and close the loop. You'd rather ship, measure, and iterate than perfect on paper

What We're NOT Looking For

• Someone who wants clean, well-defined problems only

• Someone who avoids on-call or production ownership

• Someone who needs the environment to be stable to do their best work

A Note On Pace

We operate at an absurd level of urgency because the window for what we're building won't stay open forever. If that excites you, keep reading. If it doesn't, no hard feelings, but this role probably isn't for you.

Benefits & Perks

Available to all employees

• Salary that makes sense: $235,000–$260,000 USD/year (SF) / $217,000–$233,000 CAD/year (Toronto), based on impact, not tenure

• Own a piece: Gain competitive equity in what you're helping build

• Generous PTO: 15 days mandatory, anything after 24 days, just ask (holidays excluded). Take the time you need to recharge

• Parental leave: 12 weeks fully paid, for all parents

• Wellness stipend: $100 USD/month for the gym, therapy, massages, or whatever keeps you human

• Learning & Development: Expense up to $1,000 USD/year toward anything that helps you grow professionally

• Team offsites: A change of scenery, minus the trust falls

• Sabbatical: 3 paid months off after 4 years, do something fun and new

Available to US-based full-time employees

• Full coverage, no red tape: Medical, dental, and vision (100% for employees, 50% for partner and kids). No weird loopholes, just care that works

• Life & Disability insurance: Employer-paid basic life and AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability. Coverage for life's curveballs

• Virtual care and a health guide: Teladoc for the couch doctor visit, plus Rightway to answer coverage questions and fight billing errors for you

• Mental health: Talkspace, therapy and psychiatry on your schedule

• Fertility and family building: Carrot, covering you and your partner

• EAP: Free confidential counseling, legal and financial consults, and online will prep through Guardian

• 401(k) plan: Retirement might be a ways off, but future-you will thank you

• Pre-tax benefits: HSA, FSA, and commuter benefits to help your wallet out a bit

• Supplemental options: Extra life and AD&D, accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, plus pet, legal, and identity protection through MetLife

Available to Canada-based full-time employees

• Full coverage, no red tape: Extended health, dental, and vision through Manulife (Diamond, the top tier), 100% employer-paid for you, your partner, and your kids

• Life & Disability insurance: Employer-paid life, AD&D, short-term disability, and long-term disability. Coverage for life's curveballs

• Virtual care: Dialogue Premium, so you can see a doctor or nurse from your couch, any hour

• Mental health: Talkspace Elite, therapy and psychiatry on your schedule

• Fertility and family building: Carrot, covering you and your partner

• Retirement: Group RRSP through Wealthsimple, so future-you can thank you

Available to SF-based employees

• SF HQ perks: Snacks, drinks, team lunches, intense ping pong, and peak startup energy

• E-Bike transportation: A loaner electric bike to get you around the city, on us

Available to Toronto-based employees

• Toronto Hub perks: Snacks, drinks, team lunches, glass-walled views down University Avenue, and a home base steps from Union Station

• Transit, covered: A PRESTO card loaded for GO Transit, subway, and streetcar, plus station parking if you drive to the train. Winter-proof, on us

Interview Process

Application Review: Send us your work and a quick note on why this excites you. Show us what you've built: proxy systems, networking infrastructure, reliability wins against hard targets. We care about what you've shipped, not where you went to school.

Intro Chat (~25 min): A quick conversation to get to know each other before we go deep. We'll talk about what you've been working on, what drew you to Firecrawl, and what you're looking for in your next role. Time for your questions too.

Technical Chat (~45 min): We'll dig into a real problem from our world (holding reliability under spiky load, keeping a proxy pool healthy, beating a site that fights back) and talk through how you'd approach it. Come ready to think out loud. We care how you reason, not whether you memorized the answer.

Founder Chat (~25 min): Culture, pace, ownership, and how you like to work. Time for your questions too.

Paid Work Trial (~40 Hours): Work with the team on a real, scoped piece of the infrastructure, paid at a contractor rate. It's the truest signal for both sides. You see what building at Firecrawl actually feels like, and we see how you ship. Remote-friendly, and we'll flex around your current commitments.

Decision: We move fast after the trial.

If making Firecrawl "just work" on the sites that fight back the hardest sounds like your kind of problem, you should join us.

👉 Apply now.