Software Engineer, Product Infrastructure

Location: San Francisco, California; New York, New York Workplace: Hybrid WHO WE ARE Notion is the collaborative AI workspace where teams and agents think together https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkpYpWfEK5s. We're building one place where your knowledge, projects, meetings, and AI tools live side by side, so work is faster, clearer, and less fragmented. Millions of individuals, small teams, and large companies run their work on Notion. Notinos (our employees) are customer zero in bringing this future of work to life. We care about craft, building things that last, and the belief that great work is still fundamentally human. Our goal isn’t to ship the next feature. Each and every team of Notinos is working to set the standard for how humans work together in the AI era. From building a business’s system of record to making and managing AI agents to automating away the busy work, we care deeply about giving our customers more time for their life’s work. ABOUT THE ROLE: The Product Infrastructure team works on creating abstractions and data models that solve enduring problems across the stack. We solve problems that span multiple product surfaces and typically stretch across both front-end and backend and unblock new product avenues that were previously challenging to create. This role can be based in either San Francisco or New York City. We work from our offices on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (our Anchor Days) because we do our best thinking and building together in person. We’re looking for someone who’s excited to work alongside the team during those days. WHAT YOU'LL ACHIEVE: - Shape and build the core frameworks that enable reading and writing data in Notion, integrating feedback from internal customers along the way, using whatever tools are required for the job, such as AWS, Postgres, NodeJS, TypeScript, React on the frontend. - Design new systems and abstractions that improve developer productivity, reliability, and performance by handling entire classes of problems up-front for product engineers. - Solve hard technical challenges such as designing abstractions for efficient traversal of the user content graph, building a system to sync user content for offline use, or scaling our permission model to serve large customers with complex content. SKILLS YOU'LL NEED TO BRING: - Thoughtful problem-solving: For you, problem-solving starts with a clear and accurate understanding of the context. You can decompose tricky problems and work towards a clean solution. - Pragmatic and business-oriented: You care about business impact and prioritize projects accordingly. You're not just going after cool stuff—you understand the balance between craft, speed, and the bottom line. - Strive for simplicity: You think critically about the implications of what you're building, and aim for the most simple and well-crafted design. You understand the consequence of complexity, and are motivated to eliminate them. - Not ideological about technology: To you, technologies and programming languages are about tradeoffs. You may be opinionated, but you're not ideological and can learn new technologies as you go. - Empathetic communication: You communicate nuanced ideas clearly, whether you're explaining technical decisions in writing or brainstorming in real time. In disagreements, you engage thoughtfully with other perspectives and compromise when needed. - Team player: For you, work isn't a solo endeavor. You enjoy collaborating cross-functionally to accomplish shared goals, and you care about learning, growing, and helping others to do the same. NICE TO HAVES: - You have leveraged the features of typed languages (e.g. TypeScript, Flow) to drive code migrations, or have implemented your own data modeling paradigms (e.g. writing your own ORM, sync engine, or query language). - You have seen how fundamental abstractions scale within a large codebase, and are curious about how different organizations solve similar problems (e.g. TAO by Meta, Zanzibar by Google). - You've heard of computing pioneers like Ada Lovelace, Douglas Engelbart, Alan Kay, and others—and understand why we're big fans of their work. - You have interests outside of technology, such as in art, history, or social sciences. Notion is committed to providing highly competitive cash compensation, equity, and benefits. The compensation offered for this role will be based on multiple factors such as location, the role’s scope and complexity, and the candidate’s experience and expertise, and may vary from the range provided below. For roles based in San Francisco or New York City, the estimated base salary range for this role is $150,000 - $200,000 per year. By clicking “Submit Application”, I understand and agree that Notion and its affiliates and subsidiaries will collect and process my information in accordance with Notion’s Global Recruiting Privacy Policy https://notion.notion.site/Notion-Global-Recruiting-Privacy-Policy-fc3eb4e829354a26a2bb6fd5e289b550?pvs=74 and NYLL 144 https://notion.notion.site/Ashby-AI-Bias-Audit-2b0efdeead05803bbbfae159ec86c528. #LI-Onsite A NOTE ON AI You don’t need deep AI expertise for every role, but we do expect every Notino to be intellectually curious, drawn to tinkering and discovery, and excited to use AI as a real collaborator in their work. For some roles, AI fluency is a core requirement — when that’s the case, we'll say so explicitly in the qualifications. People who thrive here don’t treat AI as a novelty. They use it to think better, and make their work easier for others to build on. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY & ACCOMMODATIONS We hire talented people from a wide range of backgrounds. If you’re excited about this role but don’t meet every bullet, we still encourage you to apply. Notion is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of any legally protected characteristic. Consistent with applicable law, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records. Notion provides reasonable accommodations during the application process; if you need one, please let your recruiter know. Notion is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate in hiring or any employment decision based on race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, genetic information, veteran status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. Notion considers qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law. Notion is also committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and disabled veterans in our job application procedures. If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, please let your recruiter know.