Job description
At Linear, we are on a mission to bring magic back to software. To empower product teams to do their best work, we are building an issue tracking and project management tool that combines UI elegance with world-class performance. Founded in 2019, Linear has become the platform of choice for thousands of high-impact companies to build their products better.
Linear was set up as a fully remote company from the start. Today, our small but mighty team is distributed across North America and Europe. What unites us is relentless focus, fast execution, and our passion for software craftsmanship. We are all makers at heart and care deeply about the quality of our work.
As a small team, we’re all generalists and constantly picking up new challenges. Regarding systems and infrastructure, we’re looking to work with experienced engineers who can dive deep into design and performance problems, architect robust backend services, and build foundational APIs that scale. Our stack is built with TypeScript, Node.js, GraphQL, and PostgreSQL. We don’t expect you to have worked with everything we use, but we do expect a strong systems thinking mindset and solid backend engineering experience.
Please note: We are an equal opportunity employer and remote-only company. At this time, we can only support hiring within North America for this role.
Why Now
The way modern teams build products is changing. AI agents are starting to participate in workflows as collaborators—triaging issues, drafting specs, even coordinating projects. Linear is uniquely positioned to become the orchestrating layer where both humans and AI agents interact and drive product development forward.
This shift demands a new generation of APIs: ones that are reliable, permission-aware, and deeply composable. As an API engineer, you won’t just be building for human developers—you’ll be shaping the interface through which AI agents understand and operate within Linear. This is foundational work, with the opportunity to help define an emerging interaction model.
What you’ll do
Take ownership, build, and evolve the APIs that power all of Linear, from frontend features to public developer access
Collaborate with product engineers, design, and infrastructure to deliver performant, reliable, and secure data flows
Improve our developer platform with well-documented, discoverable, and stable APIs
Shape the API surface that AI agents will use to interact with Linear, enabling autonomous workflows and real-time decision-making
Tech
Proprietary data synchronization library built for speed and offline support. Delta-packets are transported using WebSockets
MobX for binding the data model to the UI
Prosemirror-based content editor
Electron desktop application
Public GraphQL API that has access to all of the user’s data
Node, Postgres, and Redis in the backend
Hosted on Google Cloud with k8s
GitHub, Slack, Notion
Design system with React component library
What we offer
Interesting and challenging work
Work-life balance
Competitive salary and equity
Employee-friendly equity terms (early exercise, extended exercise)
Paid lunch and coffee during workdays
Work remotely, no commuting to the office
Paid co-working space/desk at an office
Health, dental, and vision insurance (US)
Regular team events and off-sites
5 weeks of paid vacation
4 months of paid parental leave
Learn how we think and work
Read Me a story about our mission
Why and how we do work trials Linear blog post
Crafting quality that endures Config keynote by our Co-founder & CEO, Karri Saarinen
How we structure our product teams talk by our Head of Product, Nan Yu, at Config 2024
Scaling our real-time sync engine t alk by our cofounder, Tuomas Artman, at Linear’s 2023 offsite
First Round Capital: The Unsung Ingredient: Taste
