Senior Product Engineer, Backend

About Zūm: Zūm is revolutionizing mass mobility with its Connected Mobility Experience (Zūm CMX™) system that connects and coordinates people, vehicles, and operations in real time. In the $50 billion student mobility market – the largest segment of the mass mobility industry – Zūm CMX  is transforming a daily source of anxiety and disruption into a reliable, transparent, and efficient mobility experience for students and families. Today, more than 7,500 schools rely on Zūm CMX. Recognized globally for its innovative approach and operational execution, Zūm has been named to Fast Company’s World’s Most Innovative Companies, CNBC Disruptor 50 and Changemakers, the World Economic Forum, and the Financial Times’ Fastest Growing Companies lists. Zūm is backed by leading investors including Sequoia Capital, GIC, TPG, and Softbank. This role is based at the Company's headquarters in Redwood Shores, CA and requires you to be onsite 3x/week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday). We will only consider candidates already based in the Bay Area. Who You Are: You care about shipping features that customers actually feel, and you measure your work by the business outcomes it drives. You want to build customer-facing product functionality on top of Zūm's platform, moving fast without cutting corners. You're self-driven, enjoy solving ambiguous product problems, and default to the simplest solution that meets the need. You partner easily with Product and Design, and you take full ownership of what you ship, from spec to production. What You'll Do: Own one or more product verticals within backend engineering, building customer-facing features end-to-end. Build microservices and APIs using our stack: Kubernetes, Kafka, PostgreSQL, gRPC, and related tools consuming the platform primitives (auth, data access, shared services) our platform team provides rather than building them yourself. Work closely with Product and Design to translate requirements into technical designs and shipped functionality. Write high-quality, maintainable, testable code, and participate actively in code review. Instrument what you build for visibility and traceability using tools like Datadog, Rollbar, and Segment. Contribute to engineering practices within your team, but the platform's shared standards and infrastructure are owned by the Platform Infrastructure team, not you. What You Bring To Zūm: Bachelor's degree or higher in Computer Science or equivalent experience. 5+ years of industry experience as a Software Engineer, ideally with experience building product features on top of a shared backend platform. Excellence in one or more backend languages: Node.js, Java, or Python, with strong TypeScript/Node.js preferred. Experience working with relational and non-relational databases. Hands-on experience deploying and managing applications on the cloud (AWS/Google Cloud). Good planning, organization, and decision-making skills. Strong communication with engineers, product managers, and other stakeholders. Good sense of humor with a great ability to work with others. Bonus Points: Passionate about working for a mission-driven company. Experience working in the transportation industry. Strong experience with Node.js and TypeScript. The targeted base salary range for this role is listed in the compensation section below. Actual salary may be above or below this range based on factors such as location, skills, and relevant experience. In addition, this position may include additional compensation in the form of equity or commissions. If you are a full-time salaried or hourly worker, we offer the following benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, 401(k), Holidays, Wellness, Vacation, and more. The targeted pay range for this role in CA, USA is: $190,000 - $260,000 plus stock options.