Senior Software Engineer - Backend/Python (USA Only - 100% Remote)

About Us

Close is a bootstrapped, profitable, 100% remote, ~100 person team of thoughtful individuals who prioritize taking ownership and making a meaningful impact. We’re eager to make a product our customers fall in love with over and over again.

We 💛 small scaling businesses. Since 2013, we’ve been building a CRM that focuses on better communication, without the hassle of manual data entry or a complex UI. We are out to supercharge sales productivity with the most modern, thoughtfully designed, all-in-one, communication-focused CRM. 

Our backend tech stack consists primarily of Python Flask web apps with our TaskTiger scheduler handling many of the backend asynchronous task processing chores. Our data stores include MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and Redis. The underlying infrastructure runs on AWS using a combination of managed services like EKS, MSK, RDS and ElasticCache and non-managed services running on EC2 instances. We have CI/CD pipelines that build Docker images, run automated tests and deploy to Kubernetes clusters. We also use these images in our local development environment allowing coding locally against all of our services. We have a well-documented public API that is consumed by our front-end JavaScript app as well as numerous integrations. Our infrastructure is heavily automated using Terraform, Ansible and other AWS tools.

Our product development process is inspired by Shape Up. We love open sourcing our code and ideas on our GitHub and on The Making of Close, our behind-the-scenes Product & Engineering blog. Check out our open source projects like SocketShark, TaskTiger, LimitLion and ciso8601.

About the Role

You will be joining one of our six cross-functional teams. These are the CRM, Admin & Onboarding, Conversations, Messaging & Scheduling, Automations & Integrations and Data Insights teams. You will be regularly collaborating with other backend & frontend engineers, product managers, designers, and other teams here at Close.
About YouWe’re looking for high achieving, full-time Software Engineers to join our engineering team. Someone who has a good understanding in web technologies and wants to help design, implement, launch, and scale major systems and user-facing features.
You're comfortable working in a fast-paced environment with a small and talented team where you're supported in your efforts to grow professionally. You're able to manage your time well, communicate effectively, and collaborate in a fully distributed team.

Come help us with projects like...

• Conceiving, designing, building, and launching new user-facing features

• Implementing new AI features to turbocharge our customers’ daily tasks

• Improving the performance and scalability of our GraphQL and REST API

• Improving how we sync millions of sales emails and calendar events each month

• Working with Twilio's API, WebSockets, and WebRTC to improve our calling features

• Building user-facing analytics features that provide actionable insights based on sales activity data

• Improving our Elasticsearch-backed powerful search features

• Improving our internal messaging infrastructure using streaming technologies like Kafka and Redis Building new and enhancing existing integrations with other SaaS platforms like Google’s G Suite, Zapier, and web conferencing providersEnhancing our web app with real-time updates powered by GraphQL Subscriptions

• Leveraging the latest AI LLMs from providers like OpenAI, Groq and AssemblyAI

Help manage our ever growing data processing needs…

• Billions of Mongo documents

• Millions and millions of rows of PostgreSQL data

• 55 Terabytes of logs / month

• 500 billion OTEL spans over the last 30 days

• 10+ million events / day

• Tens of thousands of docker containers7 million minutes of call recordings / month

• Petabytes / month of network traffic

Requirements...

• Senior 1 & 2 level candidates should have 5+ years of experience building modern back-end systems.

• Staff level candidates should have 8+ years of experience.

• Mid-level candidates should have ~3 years of similar experience and be eager to level up with the right opportunity.

• Professional Python experience is preferred but a working knowledge of Python with additional experience in other languages is acceptable if you have a desire to work with Python.

• You have built web APIs that were Internet facing or supported other high volume loads.

• You have hands-on production experience working with MongoDB, PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, or similar data stores. 

• You have experience designing, scaling, debugging, and optimizing systems to make them fast and reliable. 

• You have participated in code reviews and provided overall code quality suggestions to help maintain the structure and quality of the codebase. 

• You care about the craftsmanship of the code and systems you produce.

• Located in the USA (lower 48 timezones).

Bonus point if you have…

• Contributed open source code related to our tech stack.

• Led small project teams building and launching features.

• Built B2B SaaS products.

• Implemented features that leveraged AI to deliver unimaginable new product capabilities.

• Worked with complex architectures that support multiple APIs (e.g. REST, GQL, WebSockets) as well as async task and event processing frameworks.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation including an organization-wide goal-based bonus

• Paid Time Off: 5 Weeks PTO upon joining + Winter Holiday Break and Summer Holiday Break. Each year with the company, you’ll receive 2 extra PTO days.

• 80% Work Option: Work with your manager to choose between working 5 day weeks (standard full-time) or 4 day weeks @ 80% pay

• Paid Parental Leave for primary and secondary caregivers

• Sabbatical: After 5 years with the team, you’re eligible for a 1 month paid sabbatical 

• Healthcare (US residents): Medical, Dental, Vision with HSA option (US residents), Dependent care FSA (US residents)

• 401k (US residents): We match 6% contributions with immediate vesting

Our Values

Build a house you want to live in - Examine long-term thinking and action

No BS - Practice transparency and honesty, especially when it’s hard

Invest in each other - Build successful relationships with your coworkers and customers

Discipline equals freedom - Keep your word to yourself and others

Strive for greatness - Constantly challenge yourself and others

Learn More

Listen to our CEO and Founder, Steli Efti, tell the story of Close’s journey in the $0-30m Blueprint. 

Watch our culture video from our 2023 team retreat in Milan. Every year our entire team gathers in person to build connection, foster cross-functional collaboration, and have fun. In 2025, we’re headed to Paris, France. 

Explore our product. You can watch a ten-minute video demo on our home page.

Our Hiring Process

We ask a few role-specific questions as part of our application process. These questions are designed to help us learn more about you from the start so please answer each question thoughtfully. We see this as an opportunity to get to know you beyond your resume.

While we are excited by all the opportunities that generative AI has unlocked, we request that you refrain from relying on AI tools when completing an application. Every application is read closely by humans and any obviously AI generated applications will be disregarded.

Regardless of fit, you can expect to hear back from our team with an update on the status of your candidacy. 

If you progress to the interview process, you’ll receive a full outline of the role-specific interview process in your first touchpoint with us. We do our best to make the hiring process clear and human.

Compensation Range: $140K - $210K

#BI-Remote