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 and digital diagnostics. The Datastore team sits at the heart of Beacon's platform, defining the foundational data model and serving as the centralized repository and API for brain data collected from clinical studies.
You will join as a Staff Software Engineer focused on designing and scaling backend systems for data infrastructure. This role emphasizes 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.
Key aspects of the role: 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 environments.
Beacon is hiring two engineers into this role with different centers of gravity:
1. Datastore Systems: Focus on breadth across event pipelines, GraphQL API, core data models, and third-party integrations. Requires GraphQL and TypeScript/JavaScript (Node.js) expertise, ability to design event-driven pipelines end-to-end, and leadership in complex system design across API, pipelines, and dependent services.
2. PostgreSQL & Data Modeling: Focus on depth in PostgreSQL and supporting all engineers. Requires deep PostgreSQL expertise (query planner, index selection, EXPLAIN ANALYZE), data modeling (entities, relationships, constraints, temporal modeling), schema evolution under load (zero-downtime migrations, dual-write transitions), and PostgreSQL production operations (upgrades, replication, backup/restore, connection pooling, bloat management).
Success in this role means: leading design and architecture for complex projects, partnering with product, scientific, and clinical stakeholders to translate requirements into solutions, debugging and profiling ambiguous cross-system problems, implementing features with high standards for data integrity and maintainability, drafting RFCs for complex feature discovery, planning work with reasoned trade-offs, mentoring other engineers, and improving operational robustness through documentation, tools, and dashboards.
The role is 100% remote from anywhere in the U.S., with office hubs in Boston, New York City, and Paris available for in-person collaboration.
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, APIs)
- Highly proficient in at least one technical area: data modeling, distributed systems, API design, or database engineering
- 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 a strong plus, but not required
- Experience deploying and operating services in containerized environments with familiarity in Kubernetes and Infrastructure as Code tools (Terraform, Helm)
- Track record of mentoring engineers and improving team practices, tooling, test coverage, or documentation
- Collaborative mindset and excellent written and verbal communication skills, especially in asynchronous and remote environments
- Self-directed approach with track record of thriving in hybrid or fully remote teams
- Experience with or interest in LLM-assisted or agentic coding tools in production with good judgment about guardrails
For Datastore Systems role specifically:
- Ability to lead design across breadth of platform
- GraphQL and TypeScript/JavaScript (Node.js) expertise
- Experience designing event-driven pipelines end-to-end
- Leadership in complex system design across API, pipelines, and dependent services
For PostgreSQL & Data Modeling role specifically:
- Deep PostgreSQL expertise: query planner, index selection, EXPLAIN ANALYZE
- Data modeling expertise: schema design, entities, relationships, constraints, temporal modeling
- Schema evolution under load: zero-downtime migrations, dual-write transitions, lock avoidance
- PostgreSQL production operations: upgrades, replication, backup/restore, connection pooling, bloat management
- Ability to teach and document so team understands schema coherence
