Software Engineer, Backend at Mercor
San Francisco, CA
$200,000–$500,000
Jul 13, 2026
San Francisco, CA
Jul 21, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A hands-on technical leadership role focused on the shared backend systems that underpin Mercor's talent platform. The engineer will own core services, data models, APIs, and cross-product infrastructure, setting architectural standards and driving long-term technical strategy across multiple product teams. It suits a seasoned backend engineer with deep distributed systems experience who is comfortable both writing production code and guiding senior engineers through complex, large-scale migrations.
Staff level · 8+ years · San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
Posted 2 times — it's one opening, so apply once.
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Roughly 830 people in the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 620–1,100
Applicant volume Moderate — A normal amount of company. The rare requirements below are what will separate a shortlisted application from the rest.
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $190,744 (middle half $167,095–$224,501).
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Jul 28, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (7)
The title 'Member of Technical Staff' carries no explicit seniority level word, so the title states no level. However, the actual scope — owning architecture across the entire organization, setting standards for dozens of engineers, leading cross-team migrations, and partnering with engineering leadership — clearly maps to Staff-level, not merely Senior.
The role is explicitly described as 'a hands-on technical leadership role, not a management role,' which keeps it in the individual-contributor SOC (15-1252) rather than 11-3021. However, the org-wide architectural authority and leadership duties make 11-3021 a plausible runner-up.
No specific backend language or framework is named in the requirements; the JD focuses on architectural patterns and distributed systems principles rather than any particular technology stack.
AI development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) are listed in the requirements section with 'or similar' framing, making fluency in at least one a hard gate; the named tools are captured as alternatives to each other.
The posting lists San Francisco, NYC, and London offices but frames the primary headquarters as San Francisco; the CBSA reflects San Francisco. The role is explicitly in-person five days a week — not remote.
No compensation figures are stated in the posting.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): API design, service architecture.
Read the full posting
The employer publishes the full description on their own site — read it there ↗. Or sign in to read it here — it's free, and it also lets you track this application.