Principal Backend Engineer

As a Senior Staff/Principal Software Engineer at Synthesia, you will lead backend-focused initiatives that scale our enterprise SaaS platform. You will drive cross-team alignment across a large engineering organization, standardize practices, and own multi-quarter projects from concept to delivery. You’ll work end-to-end on systems spanning React frontend and Python backend, leveraging data pipelines to measure impact on commercial goals. You’ll shape the long-term engineering direction to keep us ahead of future challenges, in a fast-growing AI-first environment.

• remote role for EU/UK/Switzerland
• 25 days of leave + local holidays
• stock option plan

• Address backend friction points and inter-service testing across teams
• Drive standardization of practices across Engineering and align RD groups
• Own multi-quarter projects with iterative delivery and validation
• Influence long-term engineering direction to stay ahead 12–18 months
• Lead end-to-end initiatives spanning client (React) to backend (Python) and multiple teams

• 10+ years as a software engineer
• 2+ years at Senior Staff/Principal level (L7+)
• Leadership experience delivering cross-team projects (50+ engineers)
• Experience in high-performing, scale-up or established organizations with strong engineering culture
• Deep server-side and backend expertise
• Enterprise-grade SaaS product development experience
• Bonus: AI-powered video generation, billing systems, experimentation platforms, video delivery, real-time collaboration

• Cross-functional leadership
• Strategic thinking with a commercial focus
• Strong communication across teams
• Server-side/backend engineering
• Python
• React (frontend)