---
title: 'Senior Software Engineer | Backend at Formal'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-software-engineer-backend-formal-san-francisco-708pykf9p05q'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Senior Software Engineer | Backend at Formal

- **Company:** Formal
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2025-03-15
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/formal/942c842d-f5b8-4294-8ca1-000edc10303d

## Job description

## ABOUT FORMAL

Formal is data security platform designed to help teams understand and control their data on autopilot.

We're building a modern protocol-aware reverse-proxy for datastores and APIs that helps organizations understand their data in real-time. This allows teams to see how sensitive data is stored, consumed, and used in order to enforce least privilege through masking, filtering, or anonymization policies.

We are trusted by leading companies such as Ramp http://Ramp.com, Gusto http://Gusto.com, Notion http://Notion.com to solve problems across data security and compliance, data quality management, and infrastructure access.

Formal is backed by top-tiers VCs including Thrive Capital and Y Combinator with angel investors that include executives and founders from Datadog, Clickhouse, Plaid, and Vanta.

## ABOUT THE ROLE

Formal is on a mission to build the best engineering team and we're looking for people who want to make outsized impact on shaping the product and building the company.

Our ideal candidate has a deep understanding of building scalable backend systems, a strong sense of ownership, and enjoys owning projects from inception to scaling it in production.

Our tech stack currently involves Golang, Rust, Temporal, Datastore protocols (Postgres, S3, Kafka, MySQL, Snowflake, Redshift, SSH), and AWS

## WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Design and develop a high performance data platform that can handle large volumes of data in real-time
- Build new product features from start to finish through to research, implementation, and maintenance
- Help improve performance and reliability of net new and existing features
- Lead any initiative you think may have a strong impact on Formal
- Design scalable services as Formal grows and processes more traffic

## WHAT YOU NEED

- Software development experience building data-intensive software platforms
- You value code simplicity and performance
- Strong knowledge of Golang and experience with its ecosystem
- Experience with streaming data processing frameworks such as Apache Kafka and Google Pub/Sub
- Experience debugging and optimizing complex production systems
- Experience working in DBs, OS, networking, or other systems-level environments
- Experience with containerization technologies (Docker, ECS, or Kubernetes) and infrastructure as a code technologies (Terraform)
- Excellent communication skills and the ability to work well within a team
- You are a strong problem solver and have solid production debugging skills

## NICE-TO-HAVES

- You have worked in a fast, high-growth startup environment before
- You have experience using tools like Temporal and Render
- You have extensive knowledge of datastore protocols (Postgres, S3, Kafka)
- Familiarity with cloud computing platforms, such as Azure or GCP

## COMPENSATION

- This role offers cash compensation and a stock options grant.
- The positioning of offers within a certain range depends on various factors, including: candidate experience, qualifications, skills, and business requirements.

## BENEFITS (FOR U.S.-BASED FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES)

- 100% medical, dental & vision insurance coverage for you
- Partially covered for your dependents
- Flexible PTO

## About Formal

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Formal provides a data privilege access management platform that enforces least‑privilege access at the packet level across databases, infrastructure, and AI agents.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage – $6.8M seed led by Thrive Capital, plus earlier Y Combinator pre‑seed)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA
- **Founded**: 2022 (Y Combinator S2022 batch)
- **Founders**: Mokhtar Bacha (CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: Data security / access governance
- **Target Customers**: Engineering‑focused security teams at fast‑growing companies (B2B, Enterprise, SMB) – customers include Notion, Ramp, Gusto, and Cursor
- **Mission / Purpose**: “Bring access management to a new age for engineering‑focused security teams” (LinkedIn) and “secure AGI” (company about page)

## Products & Services
- **Formal Proxy** – A single stateless binary that parses 15+ wire protocols (Postgres, MySQL, MongoDB, Snowflake, SSH, Kubernetes, HTTP, MCP, etc.) natively. Deployed in the customer’s VPC, it enforces security policies (allow, block, mask, filter, rewrite, quarantine, etc.) in real time with sub‑10ms overhead. Works with BI tools (Metabase, Looker, Tableau), databases, and infrastructure.
- **AI Agent & MCP Security** – Intercepts and secures interactions between AI agents and MCP servers, stripping PII, blocking unauthorized tool calls, and auditing every action.
- **Real‑Time Session Monitoring** – LLM‑powered anomaly detection for SSH, Kubernetes, and SQL sessions; flags suspicious commands and privilege escalation.
- **Policy Engine & Audit** – No‑code policy editor with Rego support; policy backtesting against 31 days of historical logs; full session/query audit trails exportable to Splunk, Datadog, or S3.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation / Market Cap**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric (Total Funding)**: $6,925,000 across three rounds (Pre‑Seed 2020/2021, Seed 2023 led by Thrive Capital)
- **Notable Investors / Partners**: Thrive Capital (lead), Y Combinator, Abstract Ventures, Definition Capital; founders from Datadog, ClickHouse, Front, Alan; executives from Rippling, Plaid, Vanta, Checkout.com
- **Growth Signals**: 17 employees (+188% YoY headcount growth); customers include Notion, Ramp, Gusto, Cursor; 2,120 LinkedIn followers (+78% YoY); 6 active job postings as of mid‑2026

## Competitive Advantages
- **Protocol‑native, not network‑level**: Parses each wire protocol to make query‑level decisions (e.g., rewrite SQL, mask MongoDB fields) – unlike generic TCP proxies.
- **Single binary, many protocols**: One proxy handles 15+ protocols, eliminating the need to stitch together multiple tools.
- **Sub‑10ms latency**: Compiled Go, stateless, with connection pooling; minimal performance impact.
- **Zero application changes**: No SDK, no agent – just point connection strings through Formal.
- **In‑VPC deployment**: Data never leaves the customer’s infrastructure; forensic‑grade audit trails owned by the customer.

## Strategic Focus
- Securing AI agents and MCP integrations as AI adoption grows.
- Expanding protocol coverage and deepening compliance automation (HIPAA, SOC 2, PCI DSS, GDPR).
- Scaling go‑to‑market efforts (hiring account executives, solutions engineers, channel specialists) to capture more enterprise customers.
- Building out the “AARM” open specification (mentioned on LinkedIn) for AI agent access management.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture / Environment**: Early‑stage startup (17 people) with a strong engineering focus; in‑office work in San Francisco (2 offices – SF and Paris). Team includes alumni from Stanford, Vanta, Twingate, Ramp, Uber, Databricks, OpenAI.
- **Remote / Hybrid Policy**: In‑office (on‑site required per Built In job listings).
- **Notable Perks**: Opportunity to work on critical infrastructure for data security; backed by top‑tier VC (Thrive Capital); customers are high‑growth tech companies; fast career growth in a small team.

## Sources
1. [formal.ai/about](https://www.formal.ai/about/)
2. [formal.ai](https://www.formal.ai/)
3. [builtin.com/company/formal](https://builtin.com/company/formal)
4. [linkedin.com/company/formalhq](https://www.linkedin.com/company/formalhq)
5. [ycombinator.com/companies/formal](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/formal)

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