Senior Backend Software Engineer

Description

Rive is a new way to build production-ready UI and graphics - with rich interactivity and state-driven animation. We're on a mission to make hard-coded graphics a thing of the past with a new general-purpose graphics format for all types of software and Ul. Rive empowers teams to iterate faster and build better products.

We’ve seen tremendous organic growth over the last few years. Our innovative customers include tech giants, game studios, consumer apps with millions of users… there are even Rive pixels in space!

We’re looking for a Senior Backend Software Engineer to join our team. As part of a lean team, you’ll have a high degree of autonomy, ownership and direct impact on customers, with the opportunity to help shape the architecture of Rive’s platform as we grow. We’re looking for someone who is passionate about the backend and brings lessons learned from scaling SaaS platforms used by thousands of active users.

About the Backend Team

The backend team builds and operates the systems behind Rive’s cloud platform, focusing on the services and infrastructure that provide the core APIs, real-time collaboration, file storage, and background processing for the editor. We also own a few full-stack services that power the marketplace and customer-facing experiences, with the ability to rebuild big parts of the backend.

Engineers are trusted to identify problems, shape solutions, and drive the technical direction of the platform. Everyone contributes to architectural decisions and has broad impact across our stack.

While our focus is on backend systems, there are also opportunities to influence and contribute to other parts of Rive, including the editor and the runtimes. Collaboration is core to our culture — teams across Rive work closely to design, build, and evolve our product together.

The team is distributed between the UK and US, with a growing presence in London, where we maintain a hybrid office for collaboration and deep technical work.

You’ll work on:

• Core APIs and services that drive the Rive editor, multiplayer collaboration, asset management, and the Rive Marketplace.
• File and asset storage systems, including object storage, CDN distribution and caching layers for fast, reliable access.
• Database architecture and optimization, designing schemas and queries that perform at scale and evolve with our product.
• Real-time infrastructure for live collaboration, syncing thousands of changes per second across sessions with low latency.
• Distributed background systems for rendering, asset conversion, and large-scale task orchestration.
• Customer-facing applications for authentication, accounts, billing, and team management.
• Observability and telemetry, building insight into how our systems behave and how customers use Rive.
• Security, compliance, and permissions models that protect our customers and meet enterprise-grade standards.
• Scalability and reliability engineering, ensuring Rive stays fast and stable as we grow.

Our Tech Stack includes:

Node.js (TypeScript & JavaScript), Dart/Flutter, C++, MySQL (Aurora), Redis, OpenSearch, AWS (Fargate, Lambda, CloudWatch), Docker, Terraform, GitHub Actions

Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, specifically in backend and infrastructure.
• Proven track record of owning and delivering backend services for SaaS-based products that are widely relied upon by active users.
• Node.js experience, or strong experience in multiple programming languages and evidence of learning new ones quickly.
• Experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred), infrastructure as code, and container orchestration.
• Strong SQL skills, including hands-on experience with query analysis and optimization.
• Ability to work independently in ambiguous situations: seek out requirements, make sound decisions, and prioritize effectively.
• Excellent communication skills, with willingness to work directly with customers when needed.

Location: London or Remote U.K

Visa sponsorship is not available. The successful candidate will be required to provide evidence of their right to work in the U.K. prior to commencing employment.

Benefits

Compensation and benefits: We offer a hybrid work environment, stock options, parental leave, unlimited holiday leave and comprehensive benefits including complementary and alternative medicine practitioners. Salary range: 120k-135k GBP Compensation may depend on the level of experience and geographic location.

Rive is a low-ego team of designers, developers, and dreamers who care deeply about craft. We’re scrappy, curious, kind, and candid. We help each other, share credit, and ship fast. We’re primarily remote and global across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. And we respect your time outside work: your family, health, and life.

We have an incredible opportunity to change the world of interactive content creation. Help us accelerate the design industry's transition to Rive!

A real human will read your resume, cover letter, and answers to the application questions so please take a minute and tell us more about you!

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