---
title: 'Senior Software Engineer, Back-End (San Francisco) at Short Story'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-back-end-san-francisco-short-story-san-francisco-75d7aem8z9ys'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Senior Software Engineer, Back-End (San Francisco) at Short Story

- **Company:** Short Story
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-05-21
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/shortstory/9047ba0d-b9a3-4151-8ede-459fea0b1726

## Job description

Our Story:

Short Story is an award winning, technology powered retailer dedicated to petite women 5'4" and under. Our mission is to create a seamless shopping experience for millions of petite women so they can dress with effortless confidence.

As a fast-growing startup, we're revolutionizing retail with a data driven learning system that leverages customer feedback to create tailored products. We've been recognized by top publications like Forbes, Fortune and are backed by leading investors who share our vision of building the world's next great consumer brand.

Our Values:

We're building a company with intention and purpose. Our culture thrives on data insights, exceptional commitment to fit, and the urgency to move quickly on what matters.

- ✨ Transform Lives. We're customer-first. Everything we create exists to give her confidence.
- ⚡️ Demand Excellence. We deliver only our best work, in Fit and Finish. We obsess about details others overlook.
- 💪 Embrace Challenges. We see obstacles as opportunities to invent better solutions.
- 💡 Think Differently. We get a thrill from finding better solutions others haven't seen.

## SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER, BACKEND

What happens when your business model breaks the assumptions most e-commerce platforms were built on?

You build your own.

At Short Story, we’re rethinking how online shopping works: from inventory and logistics to personalization and fit, because the standard playbook doesn’t work for our customers. That means building systems that don’t fit neatly into existing patterns.

If you’re excited by designing systems from first principles and working on problems without obvious answers, you’ll feel at home here.

## ABOUT THE TEAM

You’ll be part of a fast-moving engineering team building the systems that power our customer experience, warehouse operations, and data platform. We value engineers who take ownership, move quickly, and are comfortable figuring things out as they go.

## THE ROLE

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you’ll design and build the services that power our core workflows, from order processing to logistics and internal operations.

You’ll own meaningful parts of the system end-to-end, making decisions about data models, APIs, and system behavior. You’ll work closely with product, frontend, and operations to ensure what we build is reliable, scalable, and actually solves the problem.

## WHAT YOU’LL DO

- Design, build, and maintain backend services that power core business workflows
- Own projects end-to-end, from early design through production and iteration
- Design APIs and data models that are clear, stable, and easy to work with
- Work across systems (orders, inventory, logistics, data) to solve complex, interconnected problems
- Make thoughtful tradeoffs between speed, scalability, and maintainability
- Improve system reliability through monitoring, testing, and debugging
- Contribute to engineering standards, code reviews, and documentation

## MUST HAVES:

- 5+ years of software development experience, 2+ Years of Python experience
- 5+ years of experience with data structures and algorithms
- Familiar with infrastructure, monitoring, and CI/CD practices
- Familiar with the following technologies:
- A Python web framework
- Testing frameworks
- Containerized workloads (Docker)
- Relational database (Postgres preferred) and SQL
- Focus on communication and documentation
- Experience designing stable, scalable, and well-documented APIs

## PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

- Test-driven development (TDD) experience
- Tech Lead for an engineering team of 3+ people
- Proven track record running large-scale distributed systems
- Worked in sprint-based environments

## COMPENSATION & BENEFITS:

- Generous Paid Time Off
- Comprehensive health, vision, and dental care
- 401k with company match (US)
- Either in-person in San Francisco, or remote in US or Canada
- Employee discount on merchandise
- Opportunity to work at a Y-Combinator backed startup with a dedicated and experienced founding team

WHY YOU'LL LOVE WORKING AT SHORT STORY:

- You'll get to work at an early stage start-up, to build the culture, and to have an outsized impact on our company
- You'll get the opportunity to try your hand at new things; we deeply believe in giving people opportunity to venture into new areas
- We are a successful, fast-growing startup solving problems that have not been solved before and reinventing fashion for an underserved segment
- We are a group of smart, passionate hackers with a wealth of diverse experiences
- We are motivated by unique challenges and opportunities
- We are driven by the mission of helping petite women find their perfect fit so they can dress with total confidence

Short Story is committed to providing equal employment opportunity and a work environment free of discrimination and harassment for all employees and applicants. We work diligently to ensure equal opportunity for all applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, age, Veteran status, or other legally protected characteristics.

## About Short Story

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Short Story is a tech-powered personal styling service exclusively for petite women (5’4” and under), delivering curated clothing boxes with expert fit and style.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage; $3.0M total funding)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2019
- **Founders**: Isabella Sun (CEO) & Samuel Hoffstaetter (CTO) [linkedin.com, theorg.com]

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Retail Apparel and Fashion (direct-to-consumer e‑commerce)
- **Target customers**: Petite women (5’4” and under) seeking clothing that fits without alterations – primarily B2C.
- **Mission statement**: “Remove the ‘ugh’ from the shopping equation so you can dress with effortless confidence” – celebrating petite women through modern, accessible styling. [my.shortstorybox.com/about-us]

## Products & Services
- **Personal Styling Box (subscription)**: Customers complete a detailed style quiz; a human stylist (supported by data) selects 4–5 clothing items tailored to petite proportions. Members purchase what they like and return the rest. [shortstorybox.com, jobs.ashbyhq.com]

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly available (private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding of $3.0M (Seed round of $2.9M in Sep 2021; pre‑seed in 2019) [linkedin.com]
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: 9 investors in the 2021 seed round (names not disclosed in search results); partners include logistics providers (e.g., ShipBob talent source). [linkedin.com]
- **Growth Signals**:
  - 87 employees as of mid‑2025 — +32.3% year‑over‑year growth. [linkedin.com]
  - Active job postings up +63.2% yearly; 31 open roles at time of research. [linkedin.com]
  - Expanded to a second warehouse and operates in 5 countries (US, Canada, Philippines, India, Turkey). [linkedin.com]
  - Featured by Fortune (2022) and KTLA (2021). [linkedin.com]

## Competitive Advantages
- **Underserved niche**: Focuses exclusively on petite women (nearly half of US women are 5’4” or under) – a segment often ignored by mainstream retailers.
- **Data + human touch**: Combines rapid customer feedback loops, fit data, and personal stylists to continuously improve fit and curation – “engineering a better retail model”. [linkedin.com]
- **Woman‑led team**: Founder/CEO Isabella Sun and a majority of the leadership team are women who intimately understand the problem, building trust and authentic brand connection. [my.shortstorybox.com/about-us]
- **Proprietary fit expertise**: Developed internal petite‑specific sizing insights and product development processes, making returns and alterations less frequent.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scaling operations**: Recent warehouse launch and headcount growth signal investment in fulfillment capacity to support increasing demand.
- **Tech‑enabled personalization**: Continued investment in data‑driven styling tools and rapid feedback loops to refine product selection and fit. [linkedin.com]
- **Talent acquisition**: Actively hiring across engineering, styling, merchandising, and operations, with a notable uptick in remote roles (e.g., Senior Software Engineer – Back-End, Remote Canada). [linkedin.com, jobs.ashbyhq.com]

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as “a team of builders and problem solvers” who “move fast, test relentlessly, and build with empathy.” The environment is entrepreneurial and impact‑focused. [my.shortstorybox.com/careers]
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: Several engineering roles are fully remote (US/Canada), while styling and fulfillment roles have specific location requirements. [linkedin.com]
- **Growth opportunity**: The company is in an aggressive growth phase (headcount +32% YoY, job postings +63%) – early‑stage employees can wear many hats and shape the company’s trajectory.
- **Mission‑driven**: Employees directly serve a passionate, underserved community – “making an impact on real lives.” [my.shortstorybox.com/careers]
- **Engineering note**: A lean technical team (3% of employees in technical roles) means high ownership and visibility for engineers; recent openings for Senior Full‑Stack and Back‑End roles. [linkedin.com]

## Sources
1. [Short Story Careers Page](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/shortstory)
2. [Short Story About Us](https://my.shortstorybox.com/about-us)
3. [Short Story Careers](https://my.shortstorybox.com/careers)
4. [Short Story LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/shortstorybox)
5. [Short Story Org Chart (The Org)](https://theorg.com/org/short-story)

## Other roles at Short Story

- [Technical Design Assistant](https://feeny.ai/job/technical-design-assistant-short-story-san-francisco-991z9kr2q8zm) — San Francisco, CA
- [HR & Recruiting Coordinator](https://feeny.ai/job/hr-recruiting-coordinator-short-story-south-san-francisco-pzvnz6x6dn49) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Director of HR](https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-hr-short-story-san-francisco-frkqxawrct2q) — San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Manager of Technical Design](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-manager-of-technical-design-short-story-san-francisco-ma6c4taxakhq) — San Francisco, CA
- [Merchandise Associate (International Only)](https://feeny.ai/job/merchandise-associate-international-only-short-story-philippines-ra8e8nnzdvz5) — Philippines
- [Senior Software Engineer, Back-End (Remote Canada)](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-back-end-remote-canada-short-story-canada-qt7paf4wkk0c) — Canada
- [Senior Technical Designer - Tops & Dresses](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-technical-designer-tops-dresses-short-story-san-francisco-nbygkhhkrmz6) — San Francisco, CA
- [Warehouse Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/warehouse-manager-short-story-south-san-francisco-v6ft2kh8v5rc) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Staff Engineer, Full Stack (US, Canada, SF)](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-engineer-full-stack-us-canada-sf-short-story-united-states-2xz91aa7yqm8) — United States
- [Personal Stylist (Remote CA, WA, NV, TX, OH, GA, FL, NC, SC)](https://feeny.ai/job/personal-stylist-remote-ca-wa-nv-tx-oh-ga-fl-nc-sc-short-story-california-jrkgaj1mdram) — California