Staff Software Engineer - Commercial - #4903
GRAIL · Menlo Park, CA
$169,000–$224,000from the description
Jul 21, 2026
Menlo Park, CA
Jul 22, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A staff-level full-stack engineering role focused on building and maintaining cloud-native, patient- and provider-facing web applications tied to a commercial cancer screening test. Day-to-day work spans backend distributed systems and frontend interfaces, using Go, React, AWS, Kubernetes, and microservices. The position also involves technical leadership — setting standards, mentoring engineers, and driving large cross-functional programs — making it suited to a seasoned engineer with 8–12+ years of full-stack and distributed systems experience.
Staff level · 8+ years · San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA · Full-time
“or” means any one of them counts — you don't need all of them.
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 310 people in the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA area plausibly meet what this posting asks for (software developers). range 240–410
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.
Most people in this occupation already list these. Still required — just not what gets you shortlisted.
What the occupation pays Median $217,796 (middle half $177,469–$231,052). This posting is about at that midpoint.
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 role is explicitly titled 'Staff level full-stack engineer' and involves cross-organizational technical leadership, mentoring, and setting standards — consistent with a Staff-level IC scope.
Primary work location is Menlo Park, CA (moving to Sunnyvale, CA in Fall 2026); Durham, NC is listed as a secondary possibility but the bay area is preferred. The CBSA reflects the primary/preferred location (San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA).
The role is hybrid (minimum 60% on-site), not fully remote.
Degree requirement is listed as 'Bachelor's or Master's … or equivalent experience' — the explicit 'or equivalent experience' clause means no formal degree is hard-gated.
Go, Terraform, gRPC, and AWS are each explicitly called out as 'preferred' within the Required Qualifications block. Despite the 'preferred' label, they appear under the hard-requirements section alongside all other listed technologies; they are marked required accordingly. The closing line 'Familiarity with gRPC, terraform, AWS is a plus' appears to be a redundant restatement of the same tools already listed as required — this inconsistency is noted but the primary required-section listing takes precedence.
Spring (non-Boot) is listed alongside Spring Boot; Spring Boot is the canonical product captured; Spring alone is subsumed.
The 8-12+ years range is interpreted as a minimum of 8 years of total professional experience.
Read the full posting
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