---
title: 'Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Backend (US  - Remote or Calgary) at Syndio'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-backend-us-remote-or-calgary-syndio-united-states-b3ajer4p8x17'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Backend (US  - Remote or Calgary) at Syndio

- **Company:** Syndio
- **Location:** United States
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-09-02
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://synd.io/careers/?gh_jid=6178939004

## Job description

Do you want to empower organizations to build smarter compensation strategies while ensuring fair pay for all employees?

Syndio is the leading pay governance and compensation intelligence platform. We help organizations make better pay decisions at every stage of the compensation lifecycle, from leveling and offers to promotions and merit. Our platform gives HR, compensation, and finance leaders the data and decision support they need to govern pay fairly, compliantly, and with confidence. We partner with many of the world’s most recognized and respected enterprises, helping them implement leading-edge compensation solutions with expert guidance and analyzing pay for over 10 million employees across the world.

Join us in our mission to help companies make smarter pay decisions they can trust!

About the Role:

We are hiring a Senior or Staff level Backend Engineer to join our core platform engineering group. In this high-autonomy role on a focused team, you will design, build, and scale high-throughput distributed systems that power our core backend services. You will own systems end-to-end - from API design and data modeling to deploying resilient infrastructure and monitoring performance in production.

## What You'll Work On

- Design, ship, and operate core distributed microservices written in Go and Python.
- Build real-time event streaming and data processing pipelines using Kafka.
- Architect performant, flexible API interfaces across REST, GraphQL, and gRPC protocols.
- Design efficient schemas and optimize query performance for relational storage using Postgres and modern ORMs.
- Provision, maintain, and scale cloud infrastructure across GCP and AWS using Terraform and GitHub Actions CI/CD pipelines.
- Ensure high reliability, low latency, and operational visibility across backend systems using Datadog

## What We're Looking For

- 7+ years building and operating backend systems in production.
- Deep comfort with Go and Python, with strong experience building concurrent, high-performance systems.
- Strong database fundamentals with Postgres and relational ORMs, including query optimization and schema migration strategies.
- Experience building and maintaining event-driven architectures with Kafka.
- Expertise designing production APIs across REST, GraphQL, or gRPC.
- Hands-on experience with cloud environments (GCP and/or AWS), Infrastructure as Code via Terraform, and continuous delivery via GitHub Actions.
- Operational mindset: familiarity with observability, distributed tracing, and metrics tooling in Datadog.
- Strong written communication to author design docs and lead clear PR reviews.
- Own a technical domain with light supervision: propose direction in writing with clear specs, take review, ship, and carry the pager for what you shipped.

Why you'll love it here:

- 💰 Competitive Compensation. For this role our salary is targeted at $180-210k USD or $175-205k CAD per year. Final offer amounts are determined by factors such as experience and expertise.
- 🏆  Syndio Equity. So you can share in Syndio’s success
- 🏝  Flexible Vacation Policy. We encourage our team to recharge when they need to (up to 20 days PTO in Canada) plus paid sick & safe time, compassion leave, and voting leave.
- 🩺  Medical, Dental, Vision. Syndio pays 90% of employee premiums, and 50% for dependents.
- 🏥  Life Insurance & Disability. Syndio covers the full premium.
- 📍Remote-first in US + Alberta; in Calgary, non-mandatory office available #LI-Remote

## Role Progession

- First 30 days: Onboard into our development workflow, master core platform architecture, and ship your first feature.
- First 60 days: Independently own sub-systems, optimize Postgres/ORM data paths, and manage cloud infrastructure updates via Terraform.
- First 90 days: Lead the design and implementation of a major event-driven or API capability end-to-end and take on-call responsibilities for platform services

The interview overview

Below you'll find an outline of the interview plan for our Senior / Staff Software Engineer (Backend) position. Please note that this is what we expect the process to look like; we may ask you for supplemental information or require an additional step before making a final decision.

- Recruiter Screen (25 min)
- Meet the Hiring Manager (30 min)
- Technical Discussion – Systems & Data Architecture (60 min)
- Practical Coding & API Design Exercise Review (60 min)
- Product Interview (30 min)
- Executive Interview (30 min)

At Syndio, we're building a diverse team that values candor, curiosity, and community. If you share these values and are interested in joining us, we'd love to talk with you even if you don't 100% meet the "about you" listed here. We don't expect anyone to have all the answers, as long as you're willing to learn and grow with us.

Syndio is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are building an inclusive and collaborative workplace as we grow, and we welcome team members regardless of gender/identity, sexual orientation, race or cultural background, religion, physical disability and age.

## About Syndio

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Syndio provides an AI-powered governance platform that helps global enterprises make every compensation decision compliant, consistent, and defensible in real time.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series C, raised $83M total)
- **Headquarters**: Seattle, Washington, USA
- **Founded**: 2016
- **Founders**: Zev Eigen (data scientist and law professor)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: HR Technology / Compensation & Pay Equity Software
- **Target customers**: B2B, primarily large global enterprises (350+ customers including more than half the Fortune 100, such as Walmart, Microsoft, and Salesforce)
- **Mission**: To help companies make smarter pay decisions they can trust.

## Products & Services
- **Syndio Platform (Decision Intelligence for Pay)**: A SaaS platform that governs every compensation decision—hires, promotions, merit cycles—with real-time guidance, compliance checks, and analytics. It is powered by Syndi™, a proprietary AI built for high-stakes compensation work.
- **Essentials**: A foundational tier for setting up pay governance.
- **Predict**: A forward-looking module for modeling the impact of compensation decisions.
- **Global Pay Reports**: Automated pay gap reporting across 100+ countries, including compliance with the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
- **Syndi™ AI**: An AI-native technology that embeds governance into the tools teams already use.
- **Embrace.ai (Acquired 2026)**: An agentic AI startup whose technology and team (co-founders Derek Butts and Seth Halpern) are accelerating Syndio's agentic AI roadmap.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed.
- **Total Funding**: $83 million (including a $50 million Series C in 2021).
- **Key Metric**: Syndio governs over **$1 trillion in pay decisions** for **350+ global enterprises**, covering **10M+ employee pay records**.
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not explicitly named in available sources, but the company is backed by venture capital.
- **Growth Signals**:
    - Made its first acquisition in 2026 (Embrace.ai) to accelerate agentic AI capabilities.
    - Expanded global footprint to 100+ countries.
    - Launched solutions for the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
    - Ranked No. 48 on the GeekWire 200 index of top Pacific Northwest startups.
    - Reports that its platform can produce $31M to $62M in value per year for a company with 60,000 employees.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Category Creator & Pioneer**: Syndio built the pay equity category and has nearly a decade of experience, earning the trust of the world's most scrutinized global enterprises.
- **Enterprise-Grade Trust & Security**: SOC-2 compliant, trusted inside attorney-client privilege, and its analysis has held up in boardrooms and litigation.
- **Proprietary AI (Syndi™)**: Purpose-built for high-stakes compensation work, continuously tested to reduce bias, and embedded where decisions happen.
- **Domain Expertise**: Deep expertise in compensation, pay equity, and global compliance regulations, with a leadership team experienced at companies like Workday, Amazon, Starbucks, and Smartsheet.
- **Customer Base**: Over half of the Fortune 100 are customers, providing a strong network effect and credibility.

## Strategic Focus
- **Pioneering Decision Intelligence for Pay**: Moving beyond pay equity reporting to become the real-time governance layer for every compensation decision.
- **Agentic AI**: Using the acquisition of Embrace.ai to build the next generation of AI-powered pay intelligence with a focus on governance, explainability, and automation.
- **Global Compliance**: Continuing to expand capabilities to meet evolving regulations, such as the EU Pay Transparency Directive.
- **Product Innovation**: Embedding AI-native tools into the workflows of HR, legal, and compensation teams.

## Why Work Here
- **Impact-Driven Mission**: Employees work on a product that helps the world's most influential companies make fairer, more transparent pay decisions—work with real social impact.
- **Remote-First Culture**: The company is remote-first with in-person meetups, offering flexibility.
- **Competitive Benefits**:
    - Flexible vacation policy (U.S.) + paid holidays.
    - Top-tier healthcare (90% employee / 50% dependent coverage).
    - Stock options + 401(k) option (U.S.).
    - Home office + electronics stipends.
    - Life and disability insurance.
    - Paid parental leave.
- **Transparency & DEI&B**: The company "lives what it delivers" by publishing its own salary ranges, CEO pay ratio, and median pay gap. DEI&B is built into structured interview processes and diverse hiring panels.
- **Strong Engineering Culture**: A team of "curious builders and bold problem-solvers" building AI-native products with enterprise-grade standards. The company emphasizes responsible growth and ethical AI.
- **Leadership**: Led by CEO Maria Colacurcio, a former co-founder of Smartsheet (which went public in 2018), and a leadership team with deep experience at world-class companies.

## Sources
1. [synd.io](https://synd.io/)
2. [synd.io/careers](https://synd.io/careers/)
3. [synd.io/about-us](https://synd.io/about-us/)
4. [linkedin.com/company/syndioinc](https://www.linkedin.com/company/syndioinc)
5. [geekwire.com](https://www.geekwire.com/2026/syndio-bets-on-agentic-ai-with-first-acquisition-in-seattle-pay-equity-startups-history/)

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