Backend Developer

Job Title: Associate Backend Engineer

Job Summary:

We are looking for an enthusiastic and motivated Associate Backend Engineer with 1 to 2 years of experience to join our growing engineering team. Whether you're a recent graduate or have some industry experience, this role offers a strong foundation to grow your skills in real-world backend development. You’ll work closely with experienced engineers and contribute to the design, development, and maintenance of scalable backend systems that power our products.

This position is ideal for individuals who are eager to learn, write production-grade code, and grow into a high-performing backend engineer.

Website: https://www.thealteroffice.com/about

Key Responsibilities:

• Assist in building and maintaining backend services and APIs for web and mobile applications.
• Work with both relational (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Redis) databases for data modeling and storage.
• Write clean, maintainable, and well-documented code under guidance.
• Contribute to authentication, authorization, and other core backend features.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including product, frontend, and QA to deliver complete features.
• Participate in code reviews and incorporate feedback to improve code quality.
• Debug issues, write unit/integration tests, and help maintain service reliability and performance.
• Learn to work with CI/CD pipelines, version control (Git), and deployment workflows.
• Use tools like Docker, basic cloud services (AWS/GCP/Azure), and optionally explore monitoring/logging tools.
• Explore new technologies such as GraphQL, WebSockets, or message queues (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ) when relevant.

Requirements:

• 1 to 2 years of backend development experience, including internships, academic projects, freelance, or open-source work.
• Familiarity with at least one backend programming language (e.g., Python, Java, Go, JavaScript, etc.).
• Basic understanding of RESTful APIs, HTTP, databases, and server-side logic.
• Exposure to SQL and NoSQL databases and understanding of CRUD operations.
• Familiarity with Git and fundamental development workflows.
• Willingness to learn and apply best practices in scalability, security, and asynchronous programming.
• Strong problem-solving mindset and eagerness to take feedback and grow.
• Good communication and collaboration skills in a team environment.

What we want to accomplish and why we need you?

Jio Haptik is an AI leader having pioneered AI-powered innovation since 2013. Reliance Jio Digital Services acquired Haptik in April 2019. Haptik currently leads India’s AI market having become the first to process 15 billion+ two-way conversations across 10+ channels and in 135 languages. Haptik is also a Category Leader across platforms including Gartner, G2, Opus Research & more. Recently Haptik won the award for “Tech Startup of the Year” in the AI category at Entrepreneur India Awards 2023, and gold medal for “Best Chat & Conversational Bot” at Martequity Awards 2023. Haptik has a headcount of 200+ employees with offices in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore.

What will you do everyday?

As a backend engineer you will be responsible for building the Haptik platform which is used by people across the globe. You will be responsible for developing, architecting and scaling the systems that support all the functions of the Haptik platform. While you know how to work hard, you also know how to have fun at work and make friends with your colleagues. 

Ok, you're sold, but what are we looking for in the perfect candidate?

Develop and maintain expertise in backend systems and API development, ensuring seamless integrations and scalable solutions, including:

• Strong expertise in backend systems, including design principles and adherence to good coding practices.
• Proven ability to enhance or develop complex tools at scale with a thorough understanding of system architecture.
• Capability to work cross-functionally with all teams, ensuring seamless implementation of APIs and solutioning for various tools.
• Skilled in high-level task estimation, scoping, and breaking down complex projects into actionable tasks.
• Proficiency in modeling and optimizing database architecture for enhanced performance and scalability.
• Experience collaborating with product teams to build innovative Proof of Concepts (POCs).
• Ability to respond to data requests and generate reports to support data-driven decision-making.
• Active participation in code reviews, automated testing, and quality assurance processes.
• Experience working in a scrum-based agile development environment.
• Commitment to staying updated with technology standards, emerging trends, and software development best practices.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills to facilitate collaboration and clarity.

Requirements*:

• A minimum of 5 years of experience in developing scalable products and applications.
• Must Have Bachelor's degree in Computer Engineering or related field.
• Proficiency in Python and expertise in at least one backend framework, with a preference for Django.
• Hands-on experience designing normalized database schemas for large-scale applications using technologies such as MySQL, MongoDB, or Elasticsearch.
• Practical knowledge of in-memory data stores like Redis or Memcached.
• Familiarity with working in agile environments and exposure to tools like Jira is highly desirable.
• Proficiency in using version control systems like Git.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively in team settings.
• Self-motivated with a strong sense of ownership and commitment to delivering results.
• Additional knowledge of RabbitMQ, AWS/Azure services, Docker, MQTT, Lambda functions, Cron jobs, Kibana, and Logstash is an added advantage.
• Knowledge of web servers like Nginx/Apache is considered a valuable asset.
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* Requirements is such a strong word. We don’t necessarily expect to find a candidate that has done everything listed, but you should be able to make a credible case that you’ve done most of it and are ready for the challenge of adding some new things to your resume. 

Tell me more about Haptik

• On a roll: Announced major strategic partnership with Jio. 
• Great team: You will be working with great leaders who have been listed in Business World 40 Under 40, Forbes 30 Under 30 and MIT 35 Under 35 Innovators. 
• Great culture: The freedom to think and innovate is something that defines the culture of Haptik. Every person is approachable. While we are working hard, it is also important to take breaks to not get too worked up. 
• Huge market: Disrupting a massive, growing chatbot market. The global market is projected to attain a valuation of US $0.94 bn by the end of 2024 progressing from US $0.11 bn earned in 2015. 
• Great customers: Businesses across industries - Samsung, HDFCLife, Times of India are some that have relied on Haptik's Conversational AI solutions to engage, acquire, service and understand customers. 
• Impact: A fun and exciting start-up culture that empowers its people to make a huge impact. 

Working hard for things that we don't care about is stress, but working hard for something we love is called passion! At Haptik we passionately solve problems in order to be able to move faster and don't shy away from breaking things! 

As a Senior Principal Engineer, you’ll lead a team of engineers through challenging development projects. Come join a highly collaborative team of skilled engineers with a passion for quality. 

What You’ll do:

• Work in an agile environment, orchestrating a group mostly comprised of skilled PHP engineers of various levels to complete User Stories authored by professional Product Managers
• Architect highly scalable/transaction heavy web/API applications
• Work with 1-2 Frontend resources (in addition to backend PHP) through projects in React, Angular (maintenance), MooTools/Jquery (deprecation), Socket.io and serverside NodeJS
• Work with Product and QA Managers in multiple grooming sessions and sprint planning for your team
• Collaborate/coordinate with other Engineering Managers and Leads
• Work with QA and Application Support teams to triage bugs
• Work with DevOps to automate deployment and monitoring of applications
• Design and develop Restful APIs using frameworks with design patterns
• Design JSON payloads and various payload contexts
• Convert complex business rules and workflows from User Story requirements into SalesForce type CRM applications and client facing web portals
• Work with monolithic legacy codebases, along with design patterns in newer repositories
• Work with large database schemas of 500+ tables 
• Write complex queries. Efficiently joining upwards of 20 tables, some containing +10m rows. In T-SQL or Doctrine ORM
• Integrate 3rd party platforms via APIs and callbacks
• Write Unit tests and documentation 

What You Have:

• 10+ years professional experience developing APIs & web based applications in PHP as an individual contributor
• Prior experience working with organized development teams (5+ member pods)
• Prefer hands-on experience using MS SQL Server, CosmosDB, but other relational databases/NoSQL ok (MySQL, Postgres, MongoDB)
• Professional experience using open source PHP frameworks. Symfony3+ preferred (Laravel, CodeIgniter - ok) 
• Experience scaling in LAMP, but also leveraging Redis, RabbitMQ, Elastic Search (ELK), SupervisorD, Socket.io, centralized Session stores
• Prefer experience designing fault tolerant architecture on cloud deployments (loadbalancing, clustering, reducing/eliminating single points of failure, etc)
• Understand branching, merging, pull requests and conflict resolution in Git (Bitbucket or Github)
• Experienced in leveraging issue tracking systems and wikis for documentation (Jira/Confluence)
• Comfortable on CentOS Linux, command line, SSH, SFTP, SCP…
• Full stack is a plus (JavaScript, CSS, HTML, React/Angular/Vue)
• Able to onboard self and others while working entirely remotely in EST
• Experience in Azure PaaS and IaaS
• Experience crafting architecture diagrams in Visio or LucidChart
• Problem solving skills and a proactive work style
• Strong interpersonal & communication skills

Must-haves

• Strong proficiency in NodeJS and JavaScript.

• Strong proficiency in top NodeJS frameworks like Express.JS (Simply Express), Feathers.JS, StrongLoop, Koa.JS, or Hapi.

• Good knowledge of SQL/NoSQL databases. Ability to develop services with polyglot persistence.

• Basic working knowledge of front-end technologies like HTML5 and CSS3.

• A strong presence of mind, excellent language, and communication skills.