Staff Software Engineer (Backend)

About Alaffia & Our Mission Every year, U.S. health plans lose billions to improper payments and administrative waste. That wasted spending ultimately trickles down across the healthcare ecosystem, driving up costs for plans, providers, and patients alike. We're here to change that paradigm.

Alaffia is a new kind of claims operations partner for health plans. Using expert clinicians and transparent AI, we deliver deeper insights, smarter automation, and consistently better outcomes across the entire lifecycle of claims. With Alaffia, health plans can cut wasted spending more effectively than ever, and provide their members the most affordable care.

We're a high-growth, venture-backed Series B healthtech startup based in NYC and are actively scaling our company. Join us in helping to build a healthcare system that works better for everyone.

(This position requires current authorization to work in the United States. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to sponsor work visas at this time.)

About the Role We're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to solve complex, cross-team technical challenges, set architectural direction, and act as a force multiplier across our engineering org. You'll translate strategic goals into technical roadmaps, lead execution, and champion AI-augmented development practices.

You'll be tasked with scaling our GenAI applications, all while tackling challenging problems in backend architecture, system design, and cloud infrastructure.

Note on language: this role will work primarily in either Python or TypeScript, depending on team need. You don't need extensive experience (or any experience) in either language specifically, what matters most is strong, transferable backend engineering fundamentals with the ability to pick up new languages and tooling as needed. We'll find the right fit for your background on our team.

What You'll Do

• Architect and own delivery of complex, high-impact backend systems spanning multiple teams
• Set technical direction and coding/design standards for backend development across the org
• Design, develop, and deploy data-intensive applications in a production environment
• Drive AI coding tool adoption (Claude Code); establish best practices and measure productivity gains
• Mentor senior engineers and influence technical decisions without formal authority
• Partner cross-functionally with fullstack, data, DevOps, and AI engineers, as well as product and business teams, to craft a feature-rich, GenAI-powered claim review platform
• Own testing strategy, system health, observability, and build-vs-buy decisions for critical infrastructure

What We're Looking For

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of leading complex, high-impact backend projects at scale, including large-scale, production-level API development and backend data processing
• Hands-on experience with relational databases and data model design
• Strong system design and cloud infrastructure experience (AWS preferred), including CI/CD, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and observability practices such as logging, user activity metrics, and integration with Datadog or similar tooling
• Demonstrated success adopting AI coding assistants to improve team productivity
• Excellent communication skills and experience mentoring senior engineers

Preferred

• Building SaaS apps in the healthcare sector
• Experience shipping user-facing AI products or AI/ML model deployment
• Building SDKs or libraries
• Experience with vector databases
• Experience with data processing orchestrators, such as Airflow or Dagster
• Experience with message queue systems, such as AWS SQS, Kinesis, or Kafka
• GraphQL and PostgreSQL experience
• Open source contributions or technical publications

Our Culture Alaffia was born out of our founders' personal connection to the inefficiency of the U.S. healthcare system. We are deeply mission-driven, with an abiding belief that technology can help create a better future for everyone, and we're looking for others who share our passion for change to join the team.

What Else Do You Get?

• Competitive compensation package (cash + equity)
• Medical, Dental, and Vision benefits
• Flexible, paid vacation policy
• Work in a flat organizational structure, direct access to Leadership