Staff Software Engineer (Ruby on Rails)
Overview
We are partnering with a high-growth technology organisation investing heavily in its product platform, supporting complex and mission-critical workflows at scale.
As part of this growth, the company is hiring a Staff Software Engineer to act as a technical leader across a suite of backend-heavy products. This is a high-impact role focused on improving system scalability, reliability and long-term architecture within a complex product environment.
The Role
As a Staff Engineer, you will take ownership of backend architecture and system design across Ruby on Rails services, while contributing to frontend systems where required.
You will work closely with Product, Platform and SRE teams to deliver scalable solutions, improve system health and ensure engineering best practices are consistently applied across the organisation.
Responsibilities
Act as a Staff-level technical leader across multiple product teams
Drive backend architecture and system design within Ruby on Rails applications
Lead scalability, performance and reliability initiatives from design through to production
Improve system health by addressing legacy complexity, technical debt and architectural gaps
Serve as a go-to technical expert for complex system and domain challenges
Collaborate with Product to translate business workflows into scalable technical solutions
Partner with Platform and SRE teams to improve observability, reliability and operational standards
Elevate engineering standards through mentoring, design reviews and knowledge sharing
What We're Looking For
Must Have
8-10+ years of professional software engineering experience
Strong experience with Ruby on Rails in production environments
Deep understanding of backend systems, APIs and service architecture
Strong experience working with relational databases (PostgreSQL preferred)
Proven experience working within complex or legacy product environments
Ability to influence technical direction beyond individual contributions
Strong ownership mindset across design, delivery and production support
Excellent collaboration skills across engineering, product and platform teams
Clear communicator with the ability to drive alignment across stakeholders
Nice to Have
Experience with modern JavaScript frameworks (React preferred)
Exposure to data-heavy systems or analytics platforms
Experience with AWS or cloud-native environments
Familiarity with DevOps, CI/CD and SRE practices
Experience working in regulated or operationally complex domains
Technology Environment
The platform is built on a modern, cloud-native stack including:
Ruby on Rails
PostgreSQL
AWS
RESTful APIs and distributed services
Modern JavaScript frameworks (React)
CI/CD pipelines and observability tooling
What Success Looks Like
Delivering scalable, reliable backend systems in a complex domain
Driving measurable improvements in performance and system health
Elevating engineering standards and best practices across teams
Acting as a trusted technical leader across product and engineering
Who Thrives in This Role
You are a Staff Engineer who leads through influence, not hierarchy. You enjoy working in complex systems, solving difficult problems and leaving things better than you found them.
You are comfortable navigating ambiguity, particularly in evolving product environments, and you take pride in building systems that are robust, scalable and genuinely valuable to users.
Interested?
For a confidential discussion, reach out to Ryan Quinn on LinkedIn.