Lead Software Engineer (API/Agentic)

Company Description Cricut® empowers people to make and personalize almost anything—from custom cards and apparel to everyday items and home décor. Our smart cutting machines, design apps, and materials make creativity easy and accessible for everyone. We believe everyone is born creative, and our mission is to put the power of handmade into the hands of all. With a passionate community of Makers around the world, Cricut helps turn inspiration into real, tangible creations—one project at a time. Let’s make. Job Description Spend most of your time writing, reviewing and shipping production backend code. Use agentic coding tools as a core part of your daily workflow, including AI-assisted code review, automated test generation and AI-augmented development, while keeping code quality, security and human oversight in place. Design and build APIs and services end to end, from technical approach and API contract through implementation, testing and release. Contribute to backend architecture across our C#/.NET and Python services, keeping them modular, maintainable and testable. Define clear, versioned API contracts that client teams on iOS, Android and desktop can consume easily. Work closely with Product Management, UX and client engineers to take defined features from spec to shipped, raising technical tradeoffs and feasibility early. Optimize service performance and scalability, including latency, throughput, database query efficiency, caching, concurrency and cloud cost. Write and maintain automated unit, integration and contract tests for your services. Drive CI/CD automation, release quality and deployment processes for containerized cloud services. Ship behind feature flags with progressive rollout and kill switches, and validate new behavior with production telemetry before ramping up. Own service health through observability, tracking SLOs, error rates, latency budgets and defect trends, and take part in on-call and incident response. Take part in code reviews and share knowledge with other engineers. Evaluate new backend, cloud, AI and tooling technologies, and recommend adopting them where they would meaningfully improve the team’s work. Qualifications Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field. 8+ years of professional backend software development experience, with deep, production-level expertise in either C#/.NET (ASP.NET Core) or Python (FastAPI/Django). Proven experience designing and running backend architectures at scale: microservices or modular monoliths, event-driven and asynchronous messaging (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS/SNS, Azure Service Bus), and distributed systems patterns. Strong API design skills using REST, including versioning, pagination, idempotency, error handling and OpenAPI documentation. Strong experience with relational and NoSQL data stores (e.g., PostgreSQL, SQL Server, MongoDB, DynamoDB, Redis), including schema design, indexing and query tuning. Strong understanding of the concurrency model in your primary language (async/await and the Task Parallel Library in .NET, or asyncio in Python). Hands-on experience with a major cloud platform (AWS, Azure or GCP), containers (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes or equivalent). At least one year of hands-on, practical use of modern AI engineering tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, etc.), with experience integrating AI/LLM capabilities into backend services where relevant (agentic patterns, evals, and latency/cost/reliability tradeoffs). Experience with architectural patterns such as Clean Architecture, Domain-Driven Design, CQRS or hexagonal architecture. Strong debugging, profiling and performance optimization skills with tools such as dotTrace/PerfView, py-spy/cProfile and APM tracing. Experience with automated testing (unit, integration, contract, load) and CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, Jenkins). Experience instrumenting services with observability tools (e.g., Datadog, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus/Grafana). Bonus: experience with both C# and Python. Bonus: experience working with client engineering teams (iOS, Android, Electron/Angular) to design APIs that fit mobile and desktop needs. Soft Skills Communicates clearly in writing and in person with engineering, product and design. Works well with Product Management, UX and client teams, and builds agreement on scope and tradeoffs. Shares knowledge readily and helps other engineers on the team grow. Stays curious about new tools and techniques, especially in AI-assisted development, and brings practical improvements to the team. Additional Information We’ve Got You Covered At Cricut, we take care of our people. Enjoy competitive Medical, Dental, and Vision coverage, a 401(k) match, generous PTO, tuition reimbursement, and a yearly lifestyle stipend to support your wellness and passions. You’ll also receive exclusive employee discounts—and best of all, you’ll be surrounded by some of the most talented, creative, and curious minds out there. A Quick Note Before You Apply… Cricut is in an exciting chapter of transformation. We’re evolving fast—refining our strategy, growing our teams, and raising the bar across everything we do. This is an incredible opportunity for the right kind of person—but it’s not for everyone. We’re looking for A-players—people who thrive in dynamic environments, turn challenges into momentum, and consistently deliver their best work. If that sounds like you, read on. Here’s what makes someone a great fit for this role (and for this moment at Cricut): You move with urgency. You don’t wait for perfect clarity to act—you start, learn, and adjust. You set high standards. You take ownership, deliver quality, and hold yourself accountable. You stay focused when things move fast. You prioritize what matters most and tune out the noise. You collaborate like a pro. You elevate others, communicate clearly, and bring a low-ego, high-output energy. You embrace AI as part of your toolkit. From idea exploration to data analysis and creative problem-solving, you leverage AI to accelerate innovation and amplify impact—because technology and creativity go hand-in-hand here. One More Thing (It’s a Big One) This role is in-office at least 4–5 days per week. We believe real collaboration, innovation, and culture are built face-to-face. If you’re energized by working alongside smart, kind, creative people—and love those hallway conversations that spark the next great idea—you’ll feel right at home. If you’re looking for a fully remote role, this may not be the right fit. But if you’re excited by challenge, purpose, and building something better—let’s make something amazing together. Relocation Statement: • This position is eligible for relocation assistance. What to Do Next: Please attach your resume, cover letter and/or include links to your portfolio or other social presence. If you want to show your super powers in other ways – include that information too. You can be sure that Cricut® is an employer who values individuality, equality and diversity, so tell us what you’re all about. If you are a Maker or a DIY enthusiast, whether you think you are a good one or not, we would love to hear about it when you send us your information. Cricut® is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. This position is contingent on successfully completing a Criminal Background Check upon hire. Cricut participates in E-Verify.