Backend Engineer

About the Company

Firecrawl helps developers turn web content into data that AI agents can use. Its API converts URLs into clean, LLM-ready Markdown or structured data, addressing a common challenge for teams building applications with large language models.

The company reached eight figures in annual recurring revenue (ARR) in its first year and more than doubled that figure in its second year. With over 147,000 GitHub stars, Firecrawl is used by developers, AI agents, and AI companies building products that depend on web data.

Firecrawl is a small team where employees take ownership of their work and manage systems from development through production. The company focuses on building infrastructure and tools that help AI systems gather information from the web.

About the Role

Firecrawl is hiring a Backend Infrastructure Engineer to build and maintain the infrastructure behind reliable, large-scale web data collection. The role focuses on backend systems, networking, proxy infrastructure, and performance under heavy and unpredictable workloads.

You’ll take ownership of production infrastructure from day one, working to improve data collection success rates, maintain proxy health, control costs, and resolve complex reliability issues. This position suits engineers who enjoy difficult technical challenges, work comfortably in changing environments, and prefer shipping and improving real systems over spending too long perfecting plans.

Key Responsibilities

• Build and maintain infrastructure that supports reliable data collection at scale.
• Improve success rates when collecting data from websites with aggressive defenses.
• Manage the health, rotation, and cost efficiency of the proxy layer.
• Improve throughput and reliability under heavy, unpredictable real-world workloads.
• Investigate intermittent failures across the stack, identify their causes, and implement lasting fixes.
• Own infrastructure systems end to end and maintain their health in production.
• Ship improvements, measure their impact, and iterate based on real-world results.

Required Qualifications

• At least 3 years of experience in backend, networking, or infrastructure engineering.
• Experience working with networking, proxy systems, or high-throughput backend systems.
• A strong focus on reliability and the ability to work through complex, adversarial technical problems.
• Ability to take end-to-end ownership of systems and maintain them in production.
• Comfort working in fast-paced environments where requirements and operating conditions can change quickly.
• A practical approach to engineering, with a preference for shipping, measuring, and iterating on solutions.

Work Environment & Expectations

Firecrawl operates with a high level of urgency and expects engineers to take direct responsibility for their work and production systems. The role involves solving difficult, sometimes unpredictable problems and maintaining reliable infrastructure in changing conditions.

Candidates who prefer only clearly defined problems, avoid on-call responsibilities or production ownership, or need a stable environment to perform at their best may find this role less suitable.

Location & Employment Details

• Location: San Francisco, California, or remote within the Americas, covering UTC-3 to UTC-10.
• Employment Type: Full-time.
• Experience Level: 3+ years in backend, networking, or infrastructure engineering.
• Work Authorization: Candidates must already be authorized to work in the United States or an eligible remote-hire region. Visa sponsorship is not currently available.

Salary & Equity

Salary Range: $200,000–$250,000 per year for U.S.-based employees in San Francisco, California. Compensation outside the United States is adjusted based on the cost of living in the employee’s country.

Equity: Up to 0.05%.

Benefits & Perks

Available to all employees:

• Paid Time Off: 15 days are mandatory, with additional time available by request after 24 days. Holidays are excluded.
• Parental Leave: 12 weeks of fully paid leave for all parents.
• Wellness Stipend: $100 per month for eligible expenses such as gym memberships, therapy, and massages.
• Learning and Development: Up to $1,000 per year for professional development expenses.
• Team Offsites: Opportunities to connect with colleagues outside the usual work setting.
• Sabbatical: Three months of paid leave after four years.

Available to U.S.-based full-time employees:

• Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance: 100% coverage for employees and 50% coverage for spouses and children.
• Life and Disability Insurance: Employer-paid short-term disability, long-term disability, and life insurance.
• Supplemental Insurance: Optional accident, critical illness, hospital indemnity, and voluntary life insurance.
• Telehealth: Access to telehealth services.
• Retirement Plan: 401(k) plan.
• Pre-Tax Benefits: Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and commuter benefits.
• Pet Insurance: Pet insurance coverage.

Available to San Francisco-based employees:

• Office Perks: Snacks, drinks, team lunches, and ping-pong facilities.
• Transportation: A loaner electric bike for getting around the city.

Interview Process

• Application Review: Submit examples of your work and a brief note explaining your interest in Firecrawl. Relevant projects may include proxy systems, networking infrastructure, and reliability improvements involving challenging targets. The team focuses on what candidates have built and delivered rather than where they studied.
• Introductory Chat: Approximately 25 minutes to discuss your experience, interest in Firecrawl, and what you want from your next role.
• Technical Chat: Approximately 45 minutes focused on practical infrastructure challenges, such as maintaining reliability under unpredictable workloads, managing proxy pools, and handling websites that resist automated access.
• Founder Chat: Approximately 25 minutes covering company culture, pace, ownership, and working preferences.
• Paid Work Trial: A one- to two-week trial involving a scoped infrastructure project, paid at a contractor rate. The trial is remote-friendly, with flexibility around existing commitments.
• Decision: Firecrawl aims to make a decision quickly after the work trial.

If you enjoy solving challenging infrastructure problems and building systems that remain reliable under difficult conditions, consider joining Firecrawl.