Blank Slate Technologies

Compensation

Full Description

About the Role We’re hiring a Backend / Platform Engineer to take full ownership of our production Scala services and the platform they run on. This is a hands-on role focused on stabilizing legacy systems, improving reliability, and helping us ship faster. You’ll be a core technical partner on backend architecture decisions, debugging and cleanup priorities, and the rebuild vs. refactor path ahead. What You’ll Do Backend Stabilization • Triage, debug, and fix issues across our Scala/JVM services • Identify recurring failures and drive root-cause cleanup Ship Features on a Legacy Codebase • Deliver new backend functionality safely and incrementally • Refactor or modernize components where it meaningfully reduces risk or accelerates development Operate and Improve the Platform • Deploy, monitor, and troubleshoot services on Kubernetes in GCP • Partner with our part-time DevOps engineer to maintain infra and evolve CI/CD Manage the Data Layer • Implement safe SQL schema changes and data migrations • Improve query performance and caching patterns using Redis Raise the Quality Bar • Expand unit and integration test coverage • Add lightweight automation (smoke tests, CI checks) to reduce regressions Must-Have Technical Experience Scala / JVM Backend • 3+ years building and maintaining production backend services in Scala (or JVM with real Scala experience) • Strong grasp of JVM fundamentals: performance, concurrency, memory/GC, production debugging API & Service Development • Experience designing and maintaining RESTful APIs • Proven ability to ship features and fixes in live systems • Comfortable writing and maintaining unit/integration tests Cloud & Kubernetes • Hands-on experience running production services on Kubernetes • Solid working knowledge of GCP, especially Compute Engine–based stacks • Able to triage incidents end-to-end: logs, deploys, rollbacks, recovery Data Layer • Strong SQL skills with production experience (Postgres/MySQL/etc.) • Safe migration habits and query tuning basics • Production experience with Redis for caching or state Nice-to-Have • Familiarity with observability tooling (Cloud Monitoring/Logging, Prometheus/Grafana, Datadog) • Experience stabilizing legacy systems or reducing defect rates • Early-stage startup experience owning production systems end-to-end Why Join • Direct ownership over core backend systems used by thousands of real users daily • High leverage — your work immediately unblocks product velocity • Meaningful equity • Small team, low bureaucracy, high trust • Join a fast-growing tech startup deploying products sitting in the middle of neuroscience + datascience/machine learning