Staff / Principal Software Engineer

Apollo — AI-native go-to-market platform · 250+ employees · $250M+ raised

Hybrid — San Francisco, CA (3 days/week in office)Full-time · HybridStaff $217K–$274K · Principal $274K–$410K + 15% bonus + equity

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About the role

Apollo.io is the AI-powered end-to-end go-to-market platform trusted by 500K+ companies, combining the industry's largest B2B contact database (210M+ contacts, 35M+ companies) with an AI-native GTM platform. Apollo is profitable, growing fast, and currently rebuilding the entire product around AI and agents. ~250 employees, $250M+ raised.

We're looking for a Staff or Principal Software Engineer to own technical direction and drive the hardest engineering problems at Apollo. You are someone who has built and operated large-scale distributed systems — not just built the tools, but used them to build products that serve hundreds of thousands of users. You float between high-priority projects, work hand-in-hand with VPs and C-suite engineering leaders, and are the go-to IC in the room.

The culture is extreme ownership, cross-team collaboration, and genuinely AI-native workflows — real AI tooling budget and autonomy to work at the top of your leverage.

Hybrid — San Francisco Bay Area, 3 days/week in office. Open to visa transfers (OPT, H1B transfers); no new sponsorship.

What you will own

Own the architecture and technical direction for a significant area of the platform — either large-scale distributed systems or agent-centric AI products
Lead the hardest technical problems, making key build/buy/cost tradeoffs that impact the entire engineering org
Set standards and patterns that raise the bar across multiple teams, multiplying the output of engineers around you
Partner with engineering and product leadership to align technical direction with business goals
Leverage AI-assisted development as a first-class part of how you work — agents to move faster on design, investigation, and implementation

Requirements

Must have8–15 years of backend or full-stack engineering experience building large-scale distributed systems

Must haveStartup, AI-native company, or early founding engineering experience — at least one startup if coming from Big Tech

Must haveClear upward trajectory in scope — not plateaued at senior

Must haveSystem design expertise for large-scale data and distributed systems

Must haveOwned and operated large-scale distributed systems (100K+ users)

Must haveCurrently at a reputable, high-growth company — strong database background or LLM-based systems experience

Must haveExperience with Ruby/Rails, Python, MongoDB, or Elasticsearch

Must haveBased in SF Bay Area — hybrid 3 days/week in office

Nice to haveTop CS school — matters less with 5+ years of strong work experience

Nice to haveHands-on with AI-assisted development tools (Copilot, Cursor)

Not a fitPlateaued — same scope and level across multiple roles with no expansion

Not a fitJob-hopping pattern with stints under 1.5 years repeatedly

Not a fitOnly worked at unknown or non-reputable companies with no scale

We interview honestly against this list — if you meet most of the “Must have” rows, apply.

Compensation

Hybrid — San Francisco, CA (3 days/week in office)

Location

Full-time · Hybrid

Employment

Staff $217K–$274K · Principal $274K–$410K + 15% bonus + equity

Compensation

Equity included

Equity

Role details

LocationHybrid — San Francisco, CA (3 days/week in office)

EmploymentFull-time · Hybrid

CompensationStaff $217K–$274K · Principal $274K–$410K + 15% bonus + equity

EquityEquity included

DepartmentEngineering

VisaOpen to visa transfers (OPT, H1B) — no new sponsorship

Vikki

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Not sure you tick every box? Reach out before you apply — happy to tell you what actually matters here.

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