Senior/Staff Software Engineer, Backend

Rive is where designers, animators, and developers build interactive experiences. Design, animate, and code in one place. What you build in the editor is what ships in your app, game, or website. No mockups, no prototypes, no handoff. The real thing. With Rive, designers and developers work with the same tools. No silos. What you see in the editor is what ships in production. Companies like Spotify, Duolingo, LinkedIn, Google, and Fortune 500 automakers use our open-source runtimes to build once and ship everywhere — websites, apps, games, and vehicles.

We’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our team. As part of a lean, agile 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 that were 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.

How we work

With a high degree of autonomy and ownership, engineers are trusted to identify problems, shape solutions, and drive the technical direction of the platform. Everyone contributes to architectural decisions and has a 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. We provide modern tooling, including a generous AI/tooling budget, and encourage thoughtful use of AI-assisted development where it improves speed, understanding, and quality. The team is distributed between the U.K. and U.S., where we maintain a hybrid office for collaboration and deep technical work.

What you’ll work on

• Core APIs and services that drive the Rive editor, multiplayer collaboration, asset management, and the Rive Marketplace.
• Database architecture and optimization, designing schemas and queries that perform at scale and evolve with our product.
• 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.
• File and asset storage systems, including object storage, CDN distribution and caching layers for fast, reliable access.
• 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.
• Scalability and reliability engineering, ensuring Rive stays fast and stable as we grow.
• Security, compliance, and permissions models that protect our customers and meet enterprise-grade standards.

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

What you will bring

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, specifically in backend and infrastructure.
• Proven track record of owning and delivering backend services for scaling 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.

What you’ll get in return

• £120k–£135k or $170‑195k USD base salary + stock options.
• Unlimited holiday (PTO) and comprehensive health benefits.
• Parental leave.
• Regular team meetups and travel opportunities.
• Hybrid flexible work environment with Offices in London (Farringdon) and San Francisco (Potrero Hill).
• Coffee and lunch on us when you’re in the office.

Compensation may depend on the level of experience and geographic location. Visa sponsorship is not available. The successful candidate will be required to provide evidence of their right to work in the U.K. or U.S. prior to commencing employment.

At Rive, we are a global group of passionate designers and developers who believe in transparency, failing fast, quick iteration, and experimentation. We aim to build a diverse and inclusive culture where everyone feels supported. We have an incredible opportunity to change the world of interactive content creation. Help us accelerate the design industry's transition to Rive!