Backend & Platform Engineer

Why this role exists 

Most systems work at a low scale. 

Very few survive real production load, complex workflows, and enterprise edge cases. 

We are building a platform that must: 

1. Scale from 500K → 20M+ interactions/month 
2. Handle complex insurance workflows reliably 
3. Become easier to deploy as it grows, not harder 
4.  
5. This role exists to build the backend foundation that makes this possible. 

What you’ll do 

You will not just write services. 

You will design and own core platform systems. 

1. Scale the platform without breaking architecture 

1. Scale from 50K → 4M+ interactions/month 
2. Ensure: 
3. High availability 
4. Low latency 
5. Fault tolerance 
6. Avoid large rewrites — build systems that evolve cleanly 

2. Build the workflow automation (WA) engine 

1. Design a flexible system with: 
2. States 
3. Stages 
4. Cohorts 
5. Dynamic workflows 
6. Ensure workflows: 
7. Handle edge cases reliably 
8. Can be configured easily 
9. Move from: 
10. Hardcoded flows → configurable execution engine 

3. Build the insurance-specific data layer 

1. Design data models for: 
2. Policy states 
3. Claim workflows 
4. Consent tracking 
5. Ensure the system works across: 
6. Multiple insurers 
7. Multiple use cases 
8. Build a platform-first data layer, not use-case-specific hacks 

4. Make deployment and setup simple 

1. Ensure workflows and data models are: 
2. Easy to configure 
3. Easy to launch 
4. Reduce friction for: 
5. Product teams 
6. Deployment teams 

5. Create a compounding data advantage 

1. Build a data layer that: 
2. Improves with every deployment 
3. Captures structured signals 
4. Ensure data becomes a long-term edge, not just storage 

6. Own production reliability 

1. Participate in on-call rotation across 3 engineers 
2. Ensure: 
3. Incidents are handled quickly 
4. Root causes are fixed permanently 
5. Build systems where reliability is shared, not individual 

What success looks like 

1. Platform scales to 2M+ interactions/month smoothly 
2. Workflow engine supports complex, dynamic use cases 
3. Data layer enables fast deployment across accounts 
4. Edge cases are handled without constant firefighting 
5. System becomes easier to use as it grows 
6. Production issues are rare and predictable 

Who you are 

1. You have built: 
2. Scalable systems 
3. Distributed services 
4. You think in: 
5. Systems 
6. Data models 
7. Trade-offs 
8. You are comfortable owning: 
9. Architecture 
10. Production systems 

What will make you stand out 

1. Experience building: 
2. Workflow engines 
3. State machines 
4. Data-heavy platforms 
5. Strong understanding of: 
6. System design 
7. Distributed systems 
8. Failure handling 
9. Experience working in: 
10. High-scale production environments 

Why join 

1. You will build the core backend of an AI platform 
2. Your work directly impacts: 
3. Scale 
4. Reliability 
5. Product capability 
6. You will design systems that move from: 
7. Use-case specific → platform-level infrastructure 

What this role is not 

1. Not just API development 
2. Not limited to feature-level work 
3. Not disconnected from production realities 

What this role is 

1. A system architect 
2. A builder of scalable platforms 
3. A driver of long-term technical advantage 

One question to self-evaluate 

Can you design backend systems that scale, handle edge cases, and become easier to use as they grow? 

Job Summary:

As a Software Development Engineer II in VoD Video Engineering team, you will design and build the core backend systems that power our Video-on-Demand platform — spanning content ingest, transcoding, adaptive bitrate packaging, and delivery at scale. You will own complex projects end-to-end, make meaningful architectural contributions, and play a hands-on role in raising the quality and reliability of our video processing infrastructure. This role is ideal for engineers who are passionate about distributed systems, media technology, and delivering exceptional streaming experiences to hundreds of millions of viewers.

About the Team:

VoD Video Engineering team is the backbone of our streaming platform — responsible for the entire lifecycle of on-demand video content, from ingest and transcoding through packaging, storage, and delivery. We own mission-critical systems that process thousands of hours of video daily, serving a global audience with reliability, low latency, and the highest quality of experience. Our team operates at the forefront of media technology, collaborating closely with CDN, playback, and content operations teams to continuously raise the bar on performance and scalability. If you're passionate about large-scale distributed systems and the technology behind modern video streaming, this is the team to be on.

Key responsibilities

• Design and build scalable, fault-tolerant backend services for video ingest, transcoding job orchestration, ABR packaging, and content delivery workflows.
• Own end-to-end delivery of complex VoD backend features — from technical design and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and operational handoff.
• Write high-quality, well-tested, and maintainable code; drive code review culture and champion engineering best practices within the team.
• Contribute to architectural decisions for the VoD platform, evaluating trade-offs across throughput, latency, cost, and reliability.
• Integrate VoD pipeline components with internal platform services including CMS, CDN origin, DRM/entitlement systems, and metadata APIs.
• Take ownership of production reliability: participate in on-call rotations, lead incident response, perform root cause analysis, and drive preventive improvements.
• Optimize video processing workflows for cost efficiency, throughput, and time-to-publish — including transcoding profile tuning and pipeline parallelism.
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers, content operations, and cross-functional engineering teams to translate requirements into robust technical solutions.
• Mentor junior engineers through code reviews, technical design discussions, and knowledge-sharing sessions; help grow the overall capability of the team.

Skills and attributes for success:

• 3+ years of professional backend software engineering experience, with a strong track record building and operating distributed systems in production.
• Proficiency in Go, Python, or Java with solid foundations in system design.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (AWS preferred) — including compute, object storage (S3), managed queues (SQS/SNS), and serverless or containerized workloads.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems design: event-driven architectures, message queues (Kafka), workflow orchestration, and idempotency patterns.
• Experience with storage systems, caching strategies (Redis, Memcached), and database query performance tuning.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), and infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Comfort with observability tooling — logging, metrics, and tracing — and a habit of building production-ready services from day one.
• Strong communication skills — able to clearly articulate technical approaches and trade-offs to peers, leads, and non-technical stakeholders.
• Collaborative team player who takes pride in lifting up those around them through mentorship and knowledge sharing.

Preferred education and experience:

• Bachelors/Master’s in computer science or a related field with 3+ years of experience in backend development

About the client

The client is building a suite of SaaS products for websites—products with clear product-market fit, strong customer pull, and the potential to become $100M+ businesses.

As they grow, they need engineers who go beyond feature delivery. They are looking for backend developers who want to build enduring systems, make practical decisions, and help us ship great products with high velocity.

What You’ll Do

• Work with product, design, and support teams to turn real customer problems into thoughtful, scalable solutions.
• Design and build robust backend systems, services, and APIs that prioritize long-term maintainability and performance.
• Use AI-assisted tooling (where appropriate) to explore solution trees, accelerate development, and reduce toil.
• Improve velocity across the team by building reusable tools, abstractions, and internal workflows—not just shipping isolated features.
• Dig into problems deeply—whether it's debugging a performance issue, streamlining a process, or questioning a product assumption.
• Document your decisions clearly and communicate trade-offs with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

What Makes You a Strong Fit

• You’ve built and maintained real-world software systems, ideally at meaningful scale or complexity.
• You think in systems and second-order effects—not just in ticket-by-ticket outputs.
• You prefer well-reasoned defaults over overengineering.
• You take ownership—not just of code, but of the outcomes it enables.
• You work cleanly, write clear code, and make life easier for those who come after you.
• You’re curious about the why, not just the what—and you’re comfortable contributing to product discussions

Bonus if You Have Experience With

• Building tools or workflows that accelerate other developers.
• Working with AI coding tools and integrating them meaningfully into your workflow.
• Building for SaaS products, especially those with large user bases or self-serve motions.
• Working in small, fast-moving product teams with a high bar for ownership.

How’s the team?

• Open and flat hierarchy
• High-agency work with a get-stuff-done attitude
• Teams that focus on creating wins - for the org, the team and yourself - all fuelled by mentorship and empowerment

Our Culture

Some values we’ve lived by over these last 14 years:

We think like inventors.

>Invent the answer you wish existed. If it already exists, ask how it could exist better.<

We build for the love of it. And we build the best.

We don’t just copy and paste. We start from first principles—frame the problem, question the default, ship, improve, repeat—until it’s world-class.

Every version and experiment is a chance to push past our comfort zone and hone our craft. It isn’t easy—it takes patience and persistence—but it ends in work we’re proud of.

Ownership builds a rocket ship.

>It’s not the hours you put in your work that count; it’s the work you put in the hours.<

We’re here to build the business. When we see a problem, we own it end‑to‑end. We pull in the right people, ask for help early, track just enough to finish, and close the loop. We focus on what moves the needle, cut low‑impact work, and push hard when it counts—then recover.

That focus builds subject mastery. It helps get in the flow. It fuels passion and can spark healthy friction—and that’s all part of the game. We make a fuss when it matters, and once a call is made, we commit to it fully—whether we all agree or disagree.

Step up to stand tall.

>Greatness is a moving target.<

Chase excellence in your craft and take on bigger problems. Grow into a full-stack problem-solver and leader—whatever your domain. Improve with intent, work with people who push you, and never get too comfortable. That’s how we level up.

Benefits

• Relocation benefits - we’ll book your domestic travel if you are not in Bangalore and help you with 2 weeks of accommodation
• Homemade lunch at the office and a pantry with snacks, fresh coffee & tea
• All the IT essentials and tools you’ll need to be successful in your role, everyone at the office gets an external monitor, ergonomic seating and a mechanical keyboard
• Frequent outings, company-sponsored outdoor events, celebrations for milestones, trips for the entire team and sponsorships to participate at international company events at exotic destinations
• Profit-sharing bonuses based on company growth, tenure and performance
• Paid time off - maternity, paternity, and marriage leave
• Insurance for the whole family

About Orenda

Orenda is a fintech-enabled financial services company founded in 2017 and based in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. We work as a corporate DSA and channel partner for leading banks and NBFCs, helping individuals, professionals, and MSMEs access suitable financial solutions across business loans, personal loans, home loans, loan against property, and professional loans.

At Orenda, we combine financial expertise, technology, and streamlined processes to simplify the lending journey. We are building our own lending-tech platform to improve operational efficiency, strengthen lender and partner integrations, and develop technology-driven solutions that support our evolving business needs.

About the role

We're looking for a Lead Software Engineer who enjoys building as much as designing. You'll shape how our systems are architected, write a good share of the code yourself, and lead a team of 3 to 5 engineers, including AI/ML engineers.

This is a hands-on leadership role, not a pure management or architecture position. Your time will be roughly split like this:

Share of time

Leading the team ~30%

Solution design ~30%

Hands-on coding ~30%

Deployment and infrastructure~10%

What you'll work on

Solution design and architecture

• Turning business needs into technical designs that are practical to build and easy to maintain

• Making architecture decisions across services, integrations and data flows

• Estimating, scoping and planning new features with business and product stakeholders

• Shaping the solution design for AI/ML use cases alongside the AI/ML engineers

Engineering and delivery

• Writing production code in Python and Node.js

• Rolling out new features across our internal and partner-facing platforms, including our CRM and partner portal

• Continuously improving existing systems for performance, reliability and code quality

• Reviewing code and setting engineering standards for the team

Infrastructure and cloud

• Maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure, including a planned move to a major cloud platform

• Owning deployments and production stability together with the team

• Working with event-driven and messaging systems (NATS today, Kafka planned)

Team leadership

• Leading and mentoring a team of 3 to 5 engineers

• Planning and prioritising work, unblocking the team, and making sure things ship

• Building a culture of ownership, clear documentation and quality

What we're looking for

• 5 to 8 years of software engineering experience, with hands-on coding in your recent roles

• Strong command of Python and Node.js

• Proven experience designing and building backend systems and microservices that run in production

• Hands-on experience deploying and running workloads on at least one major cloud platform (AWS, Azure or GCP)

• Solid working knowledge of PostgreSQL

• Experience with messaging or event streaming systems such as NATS, Kafka or RabbitMQ

• Experience leading or mentoring a small engineering team

• Comfort estimating effort, breaking down features and planning delivery

• Enough understanding of AI/ML systems to guide their solution design and integration

• Clear communication with both technical and non-technical stakeholders

Good to have

• Experience working at a fintech, lending or financial services company

• Hands-on experience with Kafka

• Experience leading an infrastructure upgrade or cloud migration

• Experience building or scaling CRM or partner-facing portal products

Why Join Us?

• Build a growing lending-tech platform: Play a key role in shaping the technology behind a growing financial services business.
• Own technical decisions: Contribute directly to architecture, engineering standards, and technology direction.
• Stay hands-on: Combine solution design and technical leadership with meaningful coding responsibilities.
• Work with emerging technologies: Collaborate with AI/ML engineers and contribute to evolving platform capabilities.
• Lead and grow a team: Mentor engineers and help build a strong engineering culture as the technology function scales.
• Make a measurable impact: Build systems that improve operational efficiency and support business growth.

Senior Software Engineer – SRE Products (Full Stack)

Work Mode: Remote

Experience: 7+ Years

Employment Type: Full-Time

Job Overview

We are looking for a skilled Senior Software Engineer to join our SRE Product Team. The ideal candidate should have strong expertise in Python, backend development, Node.js/TypeScript and AWS cloud technologies.

The role involves developing scalable applications, automation platforms, observability solutions and reliability engineering tools.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and develop scalable backend applications, REST APIs and microservices.
• Build automation platforms and self-service engineering tools.
• Develop cloud-native applications using AWS services.
• Build frontend interfaces using React or Angular.
• Implement monitoring, observability and application reliability solutions.
• Work with platform and cloud engineering teams to improve system performance.

Required Skills

• 7+ years of software engineering experience.
• Strong hands-on experience in Python.
• Good experience with Node.js, JavaScript and TypeScript.
• Expertise in REST APIs, Microservices and Backend Development.
• Hands-on experience with AWS (Lambda, ECS/EKS, API Gateway, DynamoDB, RDS, CloudWatch).
• Experience with React or Angular.
• Knowledge of Docker, Kubernetes and OpenShift.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and Terraform.
• Understanding of SRE principles, monitoring and observability.

Good to Have

• Dynatrace, Prometheus, Grafana, Splunk or OpenTelemetry.
• Experience building internal developer platforms.
• Exposure to AIOps, AI Agents or MCP.

Most sales tools help you send emails. We’re building something different.

At Salesforge, we’re creating autonomous AI agents that can:

Find the right prospects

Generate highly personalized outreach

Run conversations

And book meetings

All without human involvement.

Why this is interesting

A lot of AI products stop at “generate text.” We’re focused on outcomes.

That means solving problems like:

How do you generate messages that actually get replies?

How do you evaluate and improve agent performance over time?

How do you orchestrate millions of AI-driven interactions reliably?

How do you combine structured data + LLMs in a way that scales?

If you enjoy working at the intersection of systems + AI + real-world feedback loops, this will feel like a playground.

What you’ll be working on

You won’t be maintaining legacy systems.

You’ll be:

Designing and building core backend systems that power our AI agents

Creating APIs and services that handle high-scale, real-time workflows

Working with queues (Kafka / SQS / RabbitMQ) to orchestrate async systems

Thinking deeply about performance, cost, and reliability in AI pipelines

Shipping features end-to-end with a small, senior team

The team

We’re a small group of experienced builders. We move quickly, care about quality, and avoid unnecessary process.

No layers of management.

No long planning cycles.

Lots of ownership and autonomy.

What we’re looking for

5+ years of backend engineering experience

Strong system design fundamentals

Experience with distributed systems and async processing

Familiarity with relational and/or document databases

Clear communicator, low ego, high ownership

Why join

You’ll work on a product where the output is measurable (meetings booked, revenue generated)

You’ll have real ownership from day one

You’ll be early in building a new category (AI sales agents)

You’ll grow as fast as we do

About VerbaFlo.ai

VerbaFlo.ai is a fast-growing AI SaaS startup revolutionizing how businesses leverage AI-powered solutions. As a part of our dynamic team, you’ll work alongside industry leaders and visionaries to drive innovation and execution across multiple functions.

Role Overview

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to design and develop user-friendly, scalable, and high-performance web applications. This role requires deep expertise in backend technologies, attention to detail, and the ability to collaborate with cross-functional teams.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable backend systems, APIs, and data pipelines.
• Collaborate closely with frontend engineers, product managers, and AI teams to deliver cohesive features and seamless user experiences.
• Ensure the reliability, security, and performance of backend systems.
• Write clean, maintainable, and efficient code using modern backend practices.
• Implement automated testing, CI/CD workflows, and infrastructure as code (where applicable).
• Own the end-to-end lifecycle of backend features, from architecture to deployment.
• Monitor production systems and resolve performance and scalability issues.
• Contribute to architectural decisions and help evolve our engineering best practices.

Requirements

• 4–6 years of experience in backend development in startups, preferably in SaaS or AI-driven products.
• Proficiency in Node.js, Python, or Go
• Deep understanding of RESTful API design.
• Strong experience with databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, ElasticSearch.
• Exposure to message queues, job schedulers, or event-driven architectures (e.g., SQS, Celery, etc).
• Familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS, GCP, or Azure and containerization tools (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience with Git, CI/CD tools, and writing unit/integration tests.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a mindset geared toward performance and security.
• Excellent communication and collaboration abilities.

Why Join Us?

• Work directly with top leadership in a high-impact role.
• Be part of an innovative and fast-growing AI startup.
• Opportunity to take ownership of key projects and drive efficiency.
• A collaborative, ambitious, and fast-paced work environment.
• Perks & Benefits: gym membership benefit, workation policy, and company-sponsored lunch.

If you’re looking for an exciting role that combines strategy, execution, and leadership exposure, we’d love to hear from you!

Role Overview:

We are seeking a backend-focused Software Engineer with deep expertise in REST APIs,

real-time integrations, and cloud-based application services. The ideal candidate will build

scalable backend systems, integrate real-time data flows, and contribute to system design

and documentation. This is a hands-on role working with global teams in a fast-paced, Agile

environment.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, develop, and maintain REST APIs and backend services using Python, FastAPI,

and SQLAlchemy.

• Build and support real-time integrations using AWS Lambda, API Gateway, and

EventBridge.

• Develop and maintain Operational Data Stores (ODS) for real-time data access.

• Write performant SQL queries and work with dimensional data models in PostgreSQL.

• Contribute to cloud-based application logic and data orchestration.

• Containerize services using Docker and deploy via CI/CD pipelines.

• Implement automated testing using pytest, pydantic, and related tools.

• Collaborate with cross-functional Agile teams using tools like Jira.

• Document technical workflows, APIs, and system integrations with clarity and

consistency.

• Should have experience in team management

Required Skills & Experience:

• 8+ years of backend or integrations engineering experience.

• Expert-level knowledge of REST API development and real-time system design.

• Strong experience with: Python (FastAPI preferred), SQLAlchemy.

• PostgreSQL and advanced SQL.

• AWS Lambda, API Gateway, EventBridge.

• Operational Data Stores (ODS) and distributed system integration.

• Experience with Docker, Git, CI/CD tools, and automated testing frameworks.

• Experience working in Agile environments and collaborating with cross-functional

teams.

• Comfortable producing and maintaining clear technical documentation.

• Working knowledge of React is acceptable but not a focus.

• Hands-on experience working with Databricks or similar data platforms.

Education & Certifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (required).

• Master’s degree is a plus.

• Certifications in AWS (e.g., Developer Associate, Solutions Architect) or Python

frameworks are highly preferred.

Role Description

Software Engineer is a full-time role based in Hyderabad with Onsite work arrangement. This role involves designing, developing, and maintaining back-end services and APIs, ensuring high performance, scalability, and security across platforms. The engineer will participate in architecture discussions, code reviews, and technical decision-making, collaborating closely with product owners, QA, and cross-functional teams. Daily responsibilities include writing clean, maintainable code, troubleshooting complex issues, improving system performance, and contributing to best practices, documentation, and engineering standards. The role also includes mentoring less experienced engineers and supporting continuous improvement in development processes and tooling.

Key Requirements/Skills

4-7 years of overall experience in software development with strong expertise in building scalable web & mobile applications.

• Strong technical decision-making ability, including architecture design, technology selection and implementation of best practices.
• Front-end expertise: Strong experience in React, JavaScript, TypeScript, NextJS and building responsive and user-friendly UI/UX.
• Back-end development: Hands-on experience with Node.js, Express JS, Nest JS, RESTful APIs, API design, and server-side architecture.
• Databases : Good Hands on Exprience in both SQL(PostgreSQL Preferred) & No SQL Databases
• Gen AI Expertise: Experience in building RAG & LLM Systems, implementing AI/ML models and integrating AI-based solutions to solve business problems. Expereince with Langchain, langgraph and Vector DBs, Voice AI(STT, TTS) Models and experience in using Open AI Tools (Calude, Cursor, etc.)
• Cloud & DevOps exposure: Experience with AWS/Azure, understanding of CI/CD pipelines, and cloud-based deployments.
• Code quality & best practices: Experience in code reviews, Git version control, and ensuring maintainable and secure code.
• Team leadership: Ability to mentor developers, guide technical discussions, and collaborate across teams.
• Strong communication skills to effectively interact with technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Experience working in high-compliance environments such as healthcare systems is a plus.
• Certifications in AWS & Other skills and technologies will be an added advantage.

Educational Qualification

• B.Tech / M.Tech in CSE/IT/AI&ML only from a recognized university/college. 

About the Role

We are hiring a Backend Engineer to build and operate the services that power a leading technology marketplace being relaunched under new ownership.

You will work behind the GraphQL federation, inside the ~40 microservices that own billing, subscriptions, the catalog, RBAC, the proxy's control plane, and the Analytics/Quota services. The runtime is Node.js/TypeScript on AWS EKS, with Aurora MySQL / Postgres and DynamoDB for state, Redis / Elasticache / Couchbase for caching, Kafka (MSK) and Kinesis as the event backbone, and ClickHouse for real-time analytics reads. Every consumer-to-provider call passes through the proxy your services configure, and every dollar of marketplace revenue flows through the commerce code your services own.

Roles and Responsibilities

• · Build and operate services — Design, ship, and run Node.js/TypeScript services that sit behind the GraphQL federation. Own a slice of the ~40-service estate end-to-end: API design, schema, persistence, tests, deployment, on-call.
• GraphQL federation subgraphs — Add types, resolvers, and capabilities to the federated Platform API. Keep subgraph boundaries clean; respect RBAC at the federation enforcement layer.
• Commerce backbone — Build the subscription, invoicing, overage, dispute, and payout flows that integrate with Stripe and PayPal webhooks and the billing state machine. Make sure metering, billing, and payouts stay accurate, auditable, and replayable.
• Proxy control plane — Build the management APIs and background workers that configure the runtime proxy: API keys, plans, rate-limit policies, quota caches, abuse signals.
•  Event-driven systems — Produce and consume Kafka and Kinesis events safely: schema evolution, idempotency, retries, dead-letter handling. Operate Lambda consumers where they're the right tool.
• Data services — Help own the Node.js Analytics Service and Quota Service that front ClickHouse and Snowflake. Keep latency low, queries cheap, and authorisation correct.
• Performance and reliability — Diagnose hot paths, tune queries, add caches where they matter, and remove caches that have become liabilities. Write the SLOs and the alerts that defend them.
•  Security isolation — Implement OAuth2 / JWT / mTLS where they belong; respect least-privilege; design APIs that fail closed.
• On-call and incident response — Take part in the rotation. Lead investigations across services when something rooted in your area breaks.
• LLM-assisted engineering — Use LLM-based coding and agentic tooling to evolve how features are designed, reviewed, and tested.

What Success Looks Like

•    Services you own meet their SLOs, deploy multiple times a day, and rarely wake anyone up.

•    Billing, subscription, overage, and payout flows you ship are accurate to the cent, replayable, and trusted by both providers and consumers.

•    GraphQL subgraphs you maintain stay fast, well-typed, and pleasant to extend.

•    Event pipelines you produce and consume are idempotent, observable, and survive replay and back-pressure.

•    The first generation of agent-native primitives you help build land in production and start carrying real agent traffic.

What You Bring

•    5–8 years of backend engineering experience, with non-trivial work on production services that real customers depended on.

•    Strong TypeScript / Node.js in a production service environment; comfort with async patterns, streams, and back-pressure.

•    Solid API design — REST and GraphQL (ideally federation: Apollo Federation, Mercurius, or similar). Schema design, persisted queries, performance tuning.

•    Production fluency with SQL — MySQL and/or Postgres. Bonus for Redis or ClickHouse.

•    Experience with event-driven systems — Kafka or similar. You understand idempotency, exactly-once myths, and consumer lag.

•    Hands-on AWS (EKS, MSK, Kinesis, DynamoDB, Lambda, DMS) and Kubernetes. Comfortable reading and writing Terraform.

•    Modern engineering practice: observability, feature flags, CI/CD, and safe rollouts.

•    Care for correctness on the money path — you have shipped billing, metering, or payment code before and have the scars to show for it.

•    Bonus: experience with API gateways, rate limiting, quota enforcement, usage metering, agent protocols (MCP, A2A, x402), or LLM-based developer tooling.

•    You write small, reviewable PRs. You add the test before you fix the bug. You would rather ship a smaller thing well than a bigger thing badly.