Lead Engineer
Remote
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Europe
$160,000 - $170,000/yearly
Senior Level
Top Benefits
Medical coverage or reimbursements
Equity package
35 days paid time off
About the role
Who you are
- Strong alignment with our values. Find our values on our career page if you haven’t read up on them yet
- You are proficient in English (spoken, written, and reading) at a CEFR Level C2 / ILR Level 5
- 8+ years of experience in full-stack or backend-heavy development, with deep knowledge of Ruby on Rails and supporting technologies (e.g. Sidekiq, Kafka, Postgres)
- Experience building performant applications at scale—you're mindful of load time, bottlenecks, and architectural trade-offs
- 3+ years of experience leading or mentoring engineers in high-growth, fast-paced environments
- Clear, confident communicator who can align technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Strategic thinker who can also dive into the weeds and own execution end-to-end
- Self-starter who thrives in a remote, async-first culture and takes initiative without waiting for permission
- Experience collaborating closely with founders, designers, or product leads to shape early product direction
- Familiarity with frontend development in React (you’ll work closely with frontend engineers, even if this isn’t your main focus)
- Experience building or scaling a page builder or CMS-style product
- Examples of using AI tools to analyze data, boost productivity, or solve complex problems
- Prior experience as a founder or in a highly entrepreneurial environment
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Lead Engineer (Rails/React) to join our CMS engineering team. This team is responsible for the core user-facing areas of our product—including discussions, courses, the Home feed, weekly digests, search, and more
- We’re building a powerful website builder that will be used by millions of members across Circle communities—and we’re looking for someone who brings deep backend expertise to help us scale it. Managing a small team of engineers, you’ll work closely with the rest of our technical teams, our founders, product design and more to help shape what we build, and how we build it
- This is a high-leverage, high-collaboration role with plenty of ownership and opportunity for impact
- Leading development of high-scale backend systems that power our new website builder experience
- Collaborating closely with product, design, and leadership to shape what we build and how we build it
- Shipping thoughtful, high-quality code—balancing speed with care
- Mentoring, guiding, and building out a globally distributed team of engineers, while leading by example
- Owning end-to-end project execution—from early technical planning through delivery
- Driving performance optimizations and architectural improvements where milliseconds matter
- Designing and analyzing A/B tests to validate changes and improve the product
- Engaging regularly with stakeholders to align on priorities and technical direction
Benefits
- Medical coverage & reimbursements: Depending on your location, you will either be offered a full medical plan for you & your family, or offered generous monthly reimbursements to help with medical costs
- Equity package: We offer an equity package to every person that works at Circle
- Paid time off: We offer 35-days of PTO per year based on your hire date. Up to 50% can carry over to the next year
- Work from home, or anywhere: All of our employees are 100% remote!
- Learning & development stipend: Take advantage of up to $500 USD per year to help you level up your professional skills
- Home office stipend: New joiners receive $2,150 USD on their first paycheck to help outfit their home office, with a refresh every three years
- Company offsites: Twice a year, the Circle team gets together for a fully paid company retreat in incredible places around the world!
- Annual bonus: Roles that don't already receive variable income or commission are eligible to earn up to an extra 5% of their annual earnings as a yearly bonus based on overall company performance
- 401k with employer match: U.S. employees can partake in a 401k plan that has a 5% match, dollar-for-dollar
- U.S.-benchmarked compensation, no matter where you are in the world
- Paid sabbatical: After 3 years of employment, team members earn a paid 1-month sabbatical to decompress and unwind
- Parental leave for parents expanding their family, or just starting one
About Circle
Technology, Information and Internet
1001-5000
Circle is the world’s leading branded community platform.
We serve more than 10 million members in communities run by some of the world’s top creators and institutions — including Ali Abdaal, Dr. Becky, Jay Shetty, Harvard, SpaceX, and Oprah Winfrey.
We’re a fully remote company of 160+ team members based in 30+ countries in the world.
Lead Engineer
Remote
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Europe
$160,000 - $170,000/yearly
Senior Level
Top Benefits
Medical coverage or reimbursements
Equity package
35 days paid time off
About the role
Who you are
- Strong alignment with our values. Find our values on our career page if you haven’t read up on them yet
- You are proficient in English (spoken, written, and reading) at a CEFR Level C2 / ILR Level 5
- 8+ years of experience in full-stack or backend-heavy development, with deep knowledge of Ruby on Rails and supporting technologies (e.g. Sidekiq, Kafka, Postgres)
- Experience building performant applications at scale—you're mindful of load time, bottlenecks, and architectural trade-offs
- 3+ years of experience leading or mentoring engineers in high-growth, fast-paced environments
- Clear, confident communicator who can align technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Strategic thinker who can also dive into the weeds and own execution end-to-end
- Self-starter who thrives in a remote, async-first culture and takes initiative without waiting for permission
- Experience collaborating closely with founders, designers, or product leads to shape early product direction
- Familiarity with frontend development in React (you’ll work closely with frontend engineers, even if this isn’t your main focus)
- Experience building or scaling a page builder or CMS-style product
- Examples of using AI tools to analyze data, boost productivity, or solve complex problems
- Prior experience as a founder or in a highly entrepreneurial environment
What the job involves
- We’re looking for a Lead Engineer (Rails/React) to join our CMS engineering team. This team is responsible for the core user-facing areas of our product—including discussions, courses, the Home feed, weekly digests, search, and more
- We’re building a powerful website builder that will be used by millions of members across Circle communities—and we’re looking for someone who brings deep backend expertise to help us scale it. Managing a small team of engineers, you’ll work closely with the rest of our technical teams, our founders, product design and more to help shape what we build, and how we build it
- This is a high-leverage, high-collaboration role with plenty of ownership and opportunity for impact
- Leading development of high-scale backend systems that power our new website builder experience
- Collaborating closely with product, design, and leadership to shape what we build and how we build it
- Shipping thoughtful, high-quality code—balancing speed with care
- Mentoring, guiding, and building out a globally distributed team of engineers, while leading by example
- Owning end-to-end project execution—from early technical planning through delivery
- Driving performance optimizations and architectural improvements where milliseconds matter
- Designing and analyzing A/B tests to validate changes and improve the product
- Engaging regularly with stakeholders to align on priorities and technical direction
Benefits
- Medical coverage & reimbursements: Depending on your location, you will either be offered a full medical plan for you & your family, or offered generous monthly reimbursements to help with medical costs
- Equity package: We offer an equity package to every person that works at Circle
- Paid time off: We offer 35-days of PTO per year based on your hire date. Up to 50% can carry over to the next year
- Work from home, or anywhere: All of our employees are 100% remote!
- Learning & development stipend: Take advantage of up to $500 USD per year to help you level up your professional skills
- Home office stipend: New joiners receive $2,150 USD on their first paycheck to help outfit their home office, with a refresh every three years
- Company offsites: Twice a year, the Circle team gets together for a fully paid company retreat in incredible places around the world!
- Annual bonus: Roles that don't already receive variable income or commission are eligible to earn up to an extra 5% of their annual earnings as a yearly bonus based on overall company performance
- 401k with employer match: U.S. employees can partake in a 401k plan that has a 5% match, dollar-for-dollar
- U.S.-benchmarked compensation, no matter where you are in the world
- Paid sabbatical: After 3 years of employment, team members earn a paid 1-month sabbatical to decompress and unwind
- Parental leave for parents expanding their family, or just starting one
About Circle
Technology, Information and Internet
1001-5000
Circle is the world’s leading branded community platform.
We serve more than 10 million members in communities run by some of the world’s top creators and institutions — including Ali Abdaal, Dr. Becky, Jay Shetty, Harvard, SpaceX, and Oprah Winfrey.
We’re a fully remote company of 160+ team members based in 30+ countries in the world.