Backend Engineer Distributed US + Canada

There’s nothing like a great night’s sleep—the cozy, wrapped-up-in-a-heavy-blanket kind of sleep. The fire-crackling, curtains-drawn, DO NOT DISTURB kind of sleep. You know, the good stuff.

But here’s the thing: while 85% of people agree sleep is the key to their well-being, more than half are unsatisfied with their own. Whether it’s stress, interruptions, work, or little ones waking in the night, so many people need help getting truly restorative rest.

That’s where we come in. At Hatch, we’re on a mission to help people build better sleep habits—so they can feel more focused, energized, and present in their lives. We’ve designed best-in-class smart sleep devices, paired with science-backed sleep content, to help people unwind nightly, sleep deeply, and wake gently. More than 5 million sleepers of all ages have made space for rest with Hatch, with our baby products in 1 in 3 nurseries and our adult product,
Restore
, taking over nightstands (and Tik Tok) worldwide.

We are open to candidates across the U.S. and Canada, with a strong preference for those located in New York or San Francisco. Hatch is based in California, so we ask that you’re available during PST/PDT hours.

Now we're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to build, optimize, and scale the APIs and systems that power our connected sleep ecosystem.

Team: Backend Engineering |
Reports to: Principal Backend Engineer |
Location: Remote-friendly (US/Canada, PST hours)

You’ll design, build, and maintain the backend services that power Hatch’s mobile apps and IoT-enabled devices, including Java and Python REST API services, as well as monitoring, alerting, and Dev Ops in general. Our systems are a complex mixture of Java-based servers, AWS IoT and Lambda interacting with our mobile apps and fleet of IoT-enabled devices. Working across Mobile, Embedded, and Product teams, you'll lead backend system design, define best practices, and mentor other engineers.

This is a chance to work across a uniquely end-to-end ecosystem—from cloud APIs to physical devices in millions of homes.

As a Staff Backend Engineer, you’ll guide cross-functional technical strategy. Once you demonstrate a mastery of our systems, you will have a lot of discretion to propose and build improvements to the overall platform.

• Ramp up on our backend architecture, systems, and AI-enhanced development tools
• Ship improvements to our Spring Boot + Hibernate systems
• Start contributing to architecture conversations and cross-team design
• Ship your first scoped improvement or feature used by our mobile or device teams
• Build strong working relationships with peers across Mobile, Embedded, and Product
• Thoroughly understand the end-to-end flow of the entire backend architecture and the interactions with the app and device firmware
• Propose and lead architecture or refactor projects that improve system scalability and reliability. Drive the resolution of troubleshooting issues.
• Own a core area like IoT device communication, registration/auth flows, device routine scheduling, or backend support for mobile app features
• Improve observability using Graphite, ELK, or other internal monitoring tools
• Mentor teammates and model pragmatic, high-quality engineering decisions
• Recent projects include building a Pydantic AI backend for our in-app agent, an ECS pipeline and Java API to surface new insights from our millions of customer devices.
• Lead the design and rollout of new backend systems or large-scale refactors
• Deliver backend improvements that elevate reliability, scalability, and developer experience
• Build reusable libraries, templates, and patterns that increase engineering consistency
• Define how we incorporate AI tools into our backend workflows to drive speed and quality

The Essentials

• 8+ years of experience in backend engineering, with deep expertise in Java (21+) and Spring Boot. Familiarity and experience with Groovy. Experience with Python backend services.
• Track record of designing and building scalable, RESTful JSON APIs.
• Technical skills: Distributed Systems, Java, Groovy, Python, AWS, MySQL, Infra and Monitoring Tools (Ansible, Jenkins,…