Senior Backend Software Engineer, Censys Platform

Company Background

Censys’ mission is to be the one place to understand everything on the internet. Frustrated by the lack of trustworthy Internet intelligence, we set out to create the industry’s most comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date map of the Internet. Today, Censys delivers real-time Internet intelligence and actionable threat insights to global governments, over 50% of the Fortune 500, and leading threat intelligence providers worldwide.

Location: 

This position is remote within the United States or Canada.

Role Summary:

Censys is seeking a high-caliber Senior Backend Software Engineer to help build and evolve our next-generation Censys Platform. In this role, you’ll develop scalable microservices and design robust APIs that power our SaaS product. You’ll work closely with product and engineering teams to translate complex requirements into well-architected, maintainable software that powers critical security insights. Your contributions will help users explore and understand the global Internet, enabling them to uncover threats and better protect their organizations.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the development of our customer-facing SaaS product
• Design, build, and enhance backend services that power core functionality across the Censys Platform
• Partner with Product, Design, and Frontend Engineers to deliver features that solve real customer problems
• Integrate with internal and external APIs to support rich, data-driven experiences
• Own the full development lifecycle by automating build, test, deployment, and monitoring workflows
• Contribute to an iterative development process that emphasizes continuous improvement and rapid feedback

What You’ll Bring:

• 5+ years of professional experience building distributed web applications and APIs
• Strong expertise building backend microservices in Golang
• Experience with REST/gRPC and service-oriented architectures.
• Familiarity with Docker and interest in improving our CI/CD deployment process
• Desire to improve test coverage and increase code maintainability
• The ability to thoughtfully participate in technical discussions and drive towards data-driven decisions amidst ambiguity and competing priorities.
• Strong communication and documentation skills. Explaining complex technical concepts to other engineers, designers, salespeople, and content marketers is no problem for you.
• Open to using AI to amplify their skills and strengthen their work - demonstrating curiosity, a willingness to learn, and sound judgment in applying AI responsibly to improve efficiency and impact

What Sets You Apart:

• Familiarity with a service-oriented architecture using gRPC or REST to coordinate and communicate between services and systems
• You have experience with microservice-based designs with GCP PubSub, etc, and know their tradeoffs
• Familiarity with common web programming languages such as TypeScript and JavaScript, and proficiency with React is a plus
• Experience building, deploying, and maintaining containerized services in a Kubernetes based environment
• You understand the value of building maintainable software. Some of your first tasks when building a new service are ensuring test coverage enforced by CI, adding linters, and adding code complexity checks. You enjoy a good abstraction, and promote established design patterns, but also know when to think outside the box.

For high cost of living areas (San Francisco Bay, New York City, and Seattle), the expected salary range for this position is $174,000 USD - $206,000 USD, plus bonus eligibility and equity. 

For all other locations, the expected salary range for this position is $151,000 USD - $191,000 USD, plus bonus eligibility and equity.  

Job level and actual compensation will be decided based on factors including, but not limited to, individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process (including skills and prior relevant experience, potential impact, and scope of role), market demands, and specific work location. The listed range is a guideline, and the range for this role may be modified. For roles that are available to be filled remotely, the pay range is localized according to employee work location by a factor of between 83% and 100% of range. Please discuss your specific work location with your recruiter for more information.

Censys offers a competitive benefits package to employees, including equity, health, dental & vision coverage, retirement with company contribution, parental leave, mental health & wellness benefits, flexible PTO, and a professional development stipend. Censys also offers sales incentive pay for most sales roles and an annual bonus plan for eligible non-sales roles. Censys’s compensation and benefits are subject to change and may be modified in the future. Please see our careers page for more details.

We will work to ensure individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to apply for a role, participate in the interview process, perform essential job functions, and receive other benefits and privileges of employment. If you require accommodation, please reach out to your recruiter. These modifications enable an individual with a disability to have an equal opportunity not only to get a job, but successfully perform their job tasks to the same extent as people without disabilities.

To ensure the integrity of our hiring process and facilitate a more personal connection, we require all candidates to keep their cameras on during video interviews. Additionally, if hired, we would love to bring you to our HQ in Ann Arbor for in-person onboarding.

By applying for this job, the candidate acknowledges and agrees that any personal data contained in their application or supporting materials will be processed in accordance with our Censys Privacy Policy.

Our roots are in Ann Arbor, Michigan and our innovation is fueled by the team’s global perspectives. For this role, we are open to remote employees across the continental US. We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Censys is an equal opportunity employer.

Note to external recruiters/agencies: We are not currently engaging with third-party agencies for this role and will not accept unsolicited outreach. We kindly ask that you do not submit resumes or candidate profiles to our team.

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