Staff Backend Engineer (Kotlin/Java)

The opportunity The way software is built is changing, and fast! Engineers who embrace AI-native workflows today will define the next decade of product development. Those who don’t? They will be explaining what they used to do. At Productboard, this transformation to being AI native is not a side project; it is our entire focus. AI first is our operating model, and this is how we work. We are building an AI-first Product Engineering organization where learning velocity matters as much as shipping. Our northstar: turn ideas into validated learning twice as fast. More experiments. Tighter feedback loops. Better outcomes. We are looking for a Staff Backend Engineer who wants to be at the center of this transformation, not watching it happen from the outside. You will work on technically critical and high-leverage areas like authentication, permissions, platform services, developer experience, and shared infrastructure - all foundational pieces that enable every product team at Productboard to move faster and build more reliably. Y ou’ll be a force multiplier: unblocking delivery, setting technical direction, and creating systems that raise the bar for engineering velocity and quality across the company. You’ll lead through technical strategy and execution, represent your team in cross-functional forums, and mentor engineers to become more effective. You’ll work closely with PMs and other tech leads to drive platform thinking and pragmatic architectural choices. We value strong Kotlin skills and thoughtful backend design. Ruby experience is a big plus, but more important is your ability to think clearly and adapt - regardless of language. Join us, and help shape the future of AI-powered product development. Why this matters for your career The gap between engineers who are building with AI daily and those who are still watching is widening fast. At Productboard, you won't just use AI tools. You will shape the architecture that makes AI agents effective, define the workflows that make them reliable, and build the evaluation systems that make them trustworthy. You will work in an environment where AI first is not a future aspiration. It is the current standard. The skills you build here , agent native design, multi-model orchestration, eval-driven development, AI-ready codebase architecture, are the skills that will define senior engineering for the next decade. AI is how we build This is not a tagline. It is our daily operating model across Engineering, Product, and Design. PMs and designers don't just spec features here. They prototype with AI tools and ship to production alongside engineers. AI is embedded across the full lifecycle: technical discoveries, spec writing, design exploration, implementation, test generation, code review, CI/CD, and incident resolution. Human judgment stays in control. People own product intent and quality decisions, with strong review practices and guardrails that keep shipping safe. What we are building underneath: Agent native architecture standards: clear API contracts, semantic naming, and well-defined module boundaries that keep AI effective as systems grow A context infrastructure layer with repo versioned guidance that AI tools automatically load, improving the output of Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex simultaneously AI agent workflows for on-call and incident resolution: triage alerts, pull logs, surface relevant history, and suggest remediation Systematic optimization of AI code review to catch correctness, security, and maintainability issues earlier What you will do Identify and lead high-impact technical initiatives that improve platform scalability, reliability, or developer experience. Own complex system design and architectural decisions, collaborating across teams to align technical direction with product needs. Unblock your team by simplifying complexity, cutting scope when needed, and delivering pragmatic solutions that accelerate value delivery. Proactively tack ... (truncated, view full listing at source)