Backend Engineer

We're looking for a hands-on Backend Engineer to build and run the services behind our wealth platform. You'll own features from design to production: writing APIs, modelling data in PostgreSQL, working with search, caching, and streaming systems, and making sure what you ship is reliable, observable, and secure. This role suits someone who enjoys real production systems and cares about how their code behaves after it's deployed.

Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain backend services and REST APIs in Node.js/Python.
• Model data and write efficient queries in PostgreSQL, including schema design, indexing, migrations, and query tuning.
• Build and maintain search and indexing features on OpenSearch.
• Use Redis for caching, rate limiting, and fast-access data.
• Build Kafka producers and consumers for event-driven and streaming workflows.
• Build observable services, with clear logging, metrics, and tracing, and help debug production issues.
• Work with DevOps on deployments, CI/CD, and service health.
• Write clean, tested code and take part in code reviews.
• Apply security best practices, including authentication and authorization (RBAC), input validation, and secrets handling.
• Work with product and cross-functional teams to understand the "why" behind what you build.

Requirements:

• 2-3 years of professional backend development experience.
• Strong hands-on experience with Node.js/Python, including middleware composition, async/await, error handling, and performance basics.
• Solid PostgreSQL experience: joins, indexes, transactions, query plans (EXPLAIN), and schema design.
• Experience building and consuming REST APIs.
• Comfort with Git and good repository hygiene, such as clean commits, meaningful PRs, and branching.
• Understanding of testing (unit and integration).
• Ability to debug issues in a running system, not just locally.

Working knowledge of:

• OpenSearch / Elasticsearch: indexing, mappings, and writing search and aggregation queries.
• Redis: caching patterns, TTLs and eviction, and common data structures.
• Kafka: topics, partitions, consumer groups, offsets, and handling retries and failures.

Good to have:

• Working knowledge of Node.js/Python.
• Familiarity with observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry, or similar).
• Docker and basic Kubernetes or cloud (AWS/GCP) exposure.
• Experience in fintech, broking, or other high-reliability domains.
• Effective use of AI coding tools (Claude, Copilot, Cursor, etc.) with good judgment about when and how to trust their output.

What we're looking for beyond skills:

• Ownership: you follow your code into production.
• Curiosity about how systems fail and how to make them sturdier.
• Clear communication with engineers and non-engineers alike.