Level

Asana

Staff Software Engineer, Data Loading Infrastructure

Asana is hiring a Staff Software Engineer, Data Loading Infrastructure in San Francisco, United States. It pays $248k-$282k a year and Level rates it ; you can apply on Asana.

Level's read on this job

  • Level rates this software engineer role Little AI ●○○○: aI is not part of the work.
  • The listed pay starts 48% above the typical software engineer posting on Level.
  • Tools and skills the posting cites include GraphQL, distributed services and data pipelines.
  • Level lists 108 other open roles at Asana.
  • The role was posted within the past two weeks.

AI in this role

Drive technical roadmap and build highly available distributed backend services and data loading infrastructure at scale.

graphql
distributed-servicesdata-pipelinesquery-optimizationbackend-engineeringsystem-architecture

LunaDb is Asana’s core reactive data loading platform, powering our GraphQL-like query model to deliver instantaneous updates across web, mobile, and external API platforms at a scale of billions of daily queries. As a Staff Software Engineer on the Data Loading Infrastructure team, you will lead the next chapter of LunaDb by driving stack modernization, challenging architectural assumptions, and building dependable, highly available distributed services. You will set technical direction, improve workload isolation and query performance, and partner closely with product engineering teams to ensure Asana remains fast, reliable, and scalable as we expand platform capabilities.

This role is based in our San Francisco office with an office-centric hybrid schedule. The standard in-office days are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Most Asanas have the option to work from home on Wednesdays. Working from home on Fridays depends on the type of work you do and the teams with which you partner. If you're interviewing for this role, your recruiter will share more about the in-office requirements.

What you’ll achieve

  • Define and execute a technical roadmap that improves scalability, reliability, developer productivity, and operational simplicity.
  • Design, build, and operate highly available distributed services, caching layers, and realtime data pipelines processing millions of events per second.
  • Advance query performance, cache invalidation, workload isolation, and resource efficiency while preserving data correctness across the platform.
  • Partner with product engineers to support new capabilities, making complex data access easier, faster, and more predictable.
  • Lead major initiatives through architecture, implementation, safe migration, rollout, and long-term production operations.
  • Mentor teammates, guide cross-team technical architecture, and raise the bar for system design, reliability, and engineering quality.
  • Participate in on-call rotations, lead incident investigations, and translate operational learnings into lasting improvements across tooling, automation, and infrastructure architecture.

About you

  • 7+ years of software engineering experience designing, building, and operating large-scale distributed backend services.
  • 2+ years of experience building and scaling high-throughput data pipelines, relational/non-relational data stores, and realtime streaming systems.
  • Proven track record of operating mission-critical production systems and maintaining high reliability standards.
  • Demonstrated technical leadership in setting architectural direction, driving cross-team consensus, and mentoring senior engineers.
  • Deep architectural judgment with the ability to articulate trade-offs clearly to both engineering peers and cross-functional partners.
  • Practical expertise with Kubernetes, distributed caching technologies (such as Redis), and cloud-native infrastructure design.
  • Demonstrates curiosity about AI tools and emerging technologies, with a willingness to learn and leverage them to enhance productivity, collaboration, or decision-making

At Asana, we're committed to building teams that include a variety of backgrounds, perspectives, and skills, as this is critical to helping us achieve our mission. If you're interested in this role and don't meet every listed requirement, we still encourage you to apply.

What we’ll offer

Our comprehensive compensation package plays a big part in how we recognize you for the impact you have on our path to achieving our mission. We believe that compensation should be reflective of the value you create relative to the market value of your role. To ensure pay is fair and not impacted by biases, we're committed to looking at market value which is why we check ourselves and conduct a yearly pay equity audit.

For this role, the estimated base salary range is between $248,000 - $282,000. The actual base salary will vary based on various factors, including market and individual qualifications objectively assessed during the interview process. The listed range above is a guideline, and the base salary range for this role may be modified.

In addition to base salary, your compensation package may include additional components such as equity, sales incentive pay (for most sales roles), and benefits. If you're interviewing for this role, speak with your recruiter to learn more about the total compensation and benefits for this role.

We strive to provide equitable and competitive benefits packages that support our employees worldwide and include:

  • Mental health, wellness & fitness benefits
  • Career coaching & support
  • Inclusive family building benefits
  • Long-term savings or retirement plans
  • In-office culinary options to cater to your dietary preferences

These are just some of the benefits we offer, and benefits may vary based on role, country, and local regulations. If you're interviewing for this role, speak with your recruiter to learn more about the total compensation and benefits for this role.

#LI-Hybrid

About us

Asana is a leading platform for human + AI collaboration. Millions of teams around the world rely on Asana to achieve their most important goals, faster. Asana has been named to Fortune's Best Workplaces for 7+ years and recognized by Fast Company, Forbes, and Gartner for excellence in workplace culture and innovation. We offer an exceptional office-centric culture while adopting the best elements of hybrid models to ensure that every one of our global team members can work together effortlessly. With 13+ offices all over the world, we are always looking for individuals who care about building technology that drives positive change in the world and a culture where everyone feels that they belong.

We believe in supporting people to do their best work and thrive. Our goal is to ensure that Asana upholds an environment where all people feel that they are respected and valued, whether they are applying for an open position or working at the company. We provide equal employment opportunities to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability status, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Join Asana’s Talent Network to stay up to date on job opportunities and life at Asana.

How we rate this

Staff Software Engineer, Data Loading Infrastructure at Asana rates 0 out of 100 for how much of the daily work is AI. That makes it Little AI (AI Level 1 of 4). The level is about AI in the job, not seniority.

Classification

Little AI. AI is not part of the work.

  1. ●●●● Builds AI80 to 100
  2. ●●●○ Works on AI60 to 79
  3. ●●○○ Uses AI40 to 59
  4. ●○○○ Little AI0 to 39

Levels come from how often the tools, models and workflows of the role are named in the posting itself. Read the description and count the AI tools, models and workflows it names.

Prepare for this job

Built from this posting and from similar jobs on Level.

Skills and AI tools this role asks for

Distributed ServicesData PipelinesQuery OptimizationBackend EngineeringSystem ArchitectureGraphQL

Also common in software engineer jobs at this level

Pay

This job starts at
$248k
Typical software engineer job
$168k

This posting starts 48% above the typical software engineer job. See software engineer jobs

Questions you could be asked

  1. Tell me about a project where distributed services was part of your work. What did you do?
  2. Tell me about a project where data pipelines was part of your work. What did you do?
  3. Tell me about a project where query optimization was part of your work. What did you do?
  4. Tell me about a project where backend engineering was part of your work. What did you do?
  5. Tell me about a project where system architecture was part of your work. What did you do?

Adapt your resume

  • List these exact terms on your resume: Distributed Services, Data Pipelines, Query Optimization, Backend Engineering, and System Architecture. An applicant tracking system matches the wording, not the idea.
  • Attach one line of real, concrete experience to at least one of them. A tool named with nothing behind it rarely survives a human read.

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