Principal/Staff Backend Engineer

About Desk

Desk (desk.us) is rebuilding the operating system for US real estate — a platform built for real estate agents that owns the transaction contracts end to end. The founder is a second-time entrepreneur who previously built one of the largest brokerages in the US, and whose earlier proptech side project reached 500k monthly uses while built part-time with no funding.

Desk is early and growing fast: first revenue in spring 2026, roughly $170k ARR as of June and growing month over month. The company has raised $1M, backed by two unicorn founders in the real estate vertical.

The Role

Desk is hiring a staff/principal-level Backend Engineer to own the backend. The CTO is a data scientist who is strong on backend and databases — they're looking for a stronger engineer to delegate to. You would become the technical owner of the platform's architecture, data layer, and infrastructure.

What you'll do

• Own backend architecture, databases, and infrastructure end to end
• Set the engineering bar for a platform that handles real estate transaction contracts — enterprise-grade care about downstream consequences, not just scrappy shipping
• Build AI-natively: the team treats AI tooling as a first-class part of the engineering workflow, with a ~$100k annual AI/token budget planned through 2027

Candidate Requirements (from the hiring team)

• Staff/principal-level backend depth (systems, databases, infrastructure)
• Exceptionally sharp — Desk values raw intelligence and clear evidence of capability over years of experience
• Fully AI-native workflow: you build with AI tools aggressively and effectively rather than handwriting everything
• Enterprise-grade mindset: cautious about downstream consequences in a product that owns transaction contracts
• Comfortable with startup intensity (~50 hours/week, sustainably — no 996); equity upside scales with commitment

Compensation & Logistics

• Base salary up to $250, 000
• Equity
• Remote within the US
• Full-time