SlipstreamJobs tracks this role from the company's public career site. Apply directly on the employer's site.
Salary: USD 170,000 - 190,000 / annual
Beacon Biosignals is transforming precision medicine for the brain through at-home EEG platforms for clinical development and diagnostics. The company combines EEG and cardiopulmonary signals to deliver reimbursable assessments for sleep and central nervous system disorders.
You will join the Datastore team, which sits at the heart of Beacon's platform. The Datastore defines the foundational data model and serves as the centralized repository and API for brain data collected from clinical studies, supporting analytical tools, services, and applications used by scientists, clinicians, and partners.
This role emphasizes design and scaling of backend systems for data infrastructure: PostgreSQL data models, Kafka-driven event pipelines, and the GraphQL API that makes scientific and clinical data usable. You will lead the design of complex systems within the Datastore rather than individual components, own the pipelines that deliver dataset snapshots into the warehouse, and collaborate across platform, application, and scientific teams to implement APIs that unlock new workflows.
Beacon is hiring two engineers into this role with different centers of gravity. One will focus on breadth: event pipelines, GraphQL API, core data models, and third-party integrations. The other will focus on depth in PostgreSQL (data modeling, performance tuning, operations) and supporting all engineers in developing schemas and access controls that protect clinical data. You should indicate which profile appeals to you.
Key technical context: The GraphQL API is generated from the PostgreSQL schema using PostGraphile, so schema decisions are API decisions. Row-level security is enforced on effectively every table because clinical data from different studies and partners shares one schema. RLS predicates get injected into queries, making query plan reasoning more complex than typical systems.
Success in this role means: leading design and architecture for complex projects within the Datastore; partnering with product managers, scientific and clinical stakeholders to translate requirements into integrations and solutions; debugging and profiling ambiguous problems across system boundaries; implementing features with attention to detail and high standards for data integrity; drafting RFCs to lead complex feature discovery and technical design; planning your own work and contributing to team planning; teaching and mentoring other engineers; and leveraging feedback to improve operational robustness and ease of use.
Beacon maintains robust asynchronous work practices for a first-class remote experience, with in-person office hubs in Boston, New York City, and Paris.
REQUIREMENTS:
- 7+ years of backend development experience, including at least 3 years focused on data platforms and backend infrastructure for data-centric applications (transactional systems, event pipelines, and their APIs)
- Highly proficient in at least one technical area: data modeling, distributed systems, API design, or database engineering, with depth that others come to you for
- Strong proficiency in SQL with production experience working with PostgreSQL as an application database; fluent in writing and tuning queries; comfortable reasoning about schema design, indexes, and query plans
- Hands-on experience with data streaming and event processing using Kafka or equivalent (RabbitMQ, Pulsar, Amazon Kinesis)
- Proficiency in Julia or Python; Julia is a core Datastore language and experience is a strong plus but not required
- Experience deploying and operating services in containerized environments with familiarity in Kubernetes and Infrastructure as Code tools (Terraform and/or Helm)
- Track record of mentoring engineers and improving how a team works (practices, tooling, test coverage, documentation)
- Collaborative mindset; enjoy working across disciplines
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially in asynchronous and remote-friendly environments
- Self-directed approach with track record of thriving in hybrid or fully remote teams
- Experience with or interest in using LLM-assisted or agentic coding tools in production with good judgment about guardrails
For the Datastore Systems profile:
- Can lead design across the breadth of the platform
- GraphQL and TypeScript/JavaScript (Node.js) proficiency
- Ability to design event-driven pipelines end to end (producers, consumers, replay, idempotency, consumer lag handling)
- Experience leading design of complex systems rather than individual components
For the PostgreSQL & Data Modeling profile:
- Deep PostgreSQL expertise: fluent reasoning about query planner, index selection, EXPLAIN (ANALYZE), and query performance troubleshooting
- Data modeling expertise: designing schemas (entities, relationships, constraints), including temporal modeling for re-scored and corrected clinical results
- Schema evolution under load: zero-downtime migrations, dual-write transitions, lock avoidance, backfill and verification
- PostgreSQL production operations: upgrades, replication, backup/restore, connection pooling, bloat and vacuum behavior, extensions
- Ability to teach and document so the team understands and maintains schema coherence
