Software Engineer, Backend

About Us:

We're on a mission to make it possible for every person, team, and company to be able to tailor their software to solve any problem and take on any challenge. Computers may be our most powerful tools, but most of us can't build or modify the software we use on them every day. At Notion, we want to change this with focus, design, and craft.

We've been working on this together since 2016, and have customers like Pixar, Mitsubishi, Figma, Plaid, Match Group, and thousands more on this journey with us. Today, we're growing fast and excited for new teammates to join us who are the best at what they do. We're passionate about building a company as diverse and creative as the millions of people Notion reaches worldwide.

Notion is an in person company, and currently requires its employees to come to the office for two Anchor Days (Mondays & Thursdays) and requests that employees spend the majority of their week in the office (including a third day).

About The Role:

Millions of people use Notion — and this number is increasing every day. That means a million people trust us to deliver a fast, reliable, and secure experience, and we value this more than anything. We want to keep earning trust, while also continuing to amaze our users with the tools they can build in Notion. This is where you come in — to help us forge a performant and reliable path forward to the future.

What You'll Achieve:

• You'll help build a robust, powerful, and developer-friendly API and platform, which enables developers to extend Notion to be even more useful as a best-in-class service for our millions of users and teams who rely on us every day.
• You'll work with the team to build new API and platform features, focusing on the backend. For example, you might design and implement a new permission model for how integrations get access to data.
• You'll understand developer pain points and work to address them in the APIs you design and implement.
• You'll improve the performance and reliability of our API endpoints.

What We're Looking For:

• Thoughtful problem-solving: For you, problem-solving starts with a clear and accurate understanding of the context. You can decompose tricky problems and work towards a clean solution, by yourself or with teammates. You're comfortable asking for help when you get stuck.
• Ability to scale: You have experience scaling production software to support rapid growth, or you're motivated and excited to learn.
• Pragmatic and business-oriented: You care about business impact and prioritize projects accordingly. You're not just going after cool stuff—you understand the balance between craft, speed, and the bottom line.
• Put users and developers first: You think critically about the implications of what you're building, and how it shapes real people's lives. You consider the privacy and security implications of building APIs that give access to users' data. You understand that reach comes with responsibility for our impact—good and bad.
• Not ideological about technology: To you, technologies and programming languages are about tradeoffs. You may be opinionated, but you're not ideological and can learn new technologies as you go.
• Empathetic communication: You communicate nuanced ideas clearly, whether you're explaining technical decisions in writing or brainstorming in real time. In disagreements, you engage thoughtfully with other perspectives and compromise when needed.
• Team player: For you, work isn't a solo endeavor. You enjoy collaborating cross-functionally to accomplish shared goals, and you care about learning, growing, and helping others to do the same.

Bonus Points:

• You have experience building a public API.
• You have experience monitoring production systems and making performance optimizations.
• You have experience working with distributed systems.
• You're proficient with any part of our technology stack: TypeScript, Node.js, React, Redis, Postgres, Docker, and Elasticsearch.
• You've heard of computing pioneers like Ada Lovelace, Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, and others—and understand why we're big fans of their work.
• You have interests outside of technology, such as in art, history, or social sciences.

We hire talented and passionate people from a variety of backgrounds because we want our global employee base to represent the wide diversity of our customers. If you’re excited about a role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every bullet point listed in the job description, we still encourage you to apply. If you’re a builder at heart, share our company values, and enthusiastic about making software toolmaking ubiquitous, we want to hear from you.

Notion is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Notion considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Notion is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation made due to a disability, please let your recruiter know.

Notion is committed to providing highly competitive cash compensation, equity, and benefits. The compensation offered for this role will be based on multiple factors such as location, the role’s scope and complexity, and the candidate’s experience and expertise, and may vary from the range provided below. For roles based in San Francisco, the estimated base salary range for this role is $130,000 - $250,000 per year. 

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