Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer – Payments Platform

Location: Austin, TX (On-site)
Job Type: Full-Time
Experience Required: 6–7 Years
Work Authorization: Must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship

About the Company

We are building a modern, API-first fintech platform focused on payment processing infrastructure and high-volume ACH reconciliation within the highly regulated U.S. financial services ecosystem. As an ambitious, AI-native startup, we are looking for engineers who thrive in fast-paced environments and take complete ownership of their work.

Role Overview

We are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer with strong expertise in backend development, payment workflows, and event-driven architecture. This role will focus on building and maintaining scalable backend systems that power our payments platform, ensuring reliability, performance, and operational excellence.

This is a hands-on role requiring ownership from design through production deployment. The ideal candidate is comfortable working in a high-intensity startup environment, solving complex engineering challenges, and collaborating cross-functionally.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain production-grade Node.js backend services and REST APIs
• Build and manage end-to-end ACH payment workflows , including debits, credits, retries, failure handling, ledgering, and reconciliation
• Develop event-driven microservices using AWS services such as SQS, Lambda, and API Gateway
• Design and optimize PostgreSQL database schemas for high-integrity financial workflows
• Implement and maintain CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment workflows
• Ensure system reliability, observability, scalability, and performance optimization
• Create and maintain technical documentation, deployment runbooks, and architecture notes
• Build internal tools and dashboards using React when required
• Troubleshoot production issues, payment failures, and asynchronous workflow bottlenecks
• Collaborate with Product, QA, DevOps, and business stakeholders
• Support customer integrations and resolve live workflow issues when needed

Required Skills & Qualifications

• 6–7 years of software engineering experience with strong backend development expertise
• Strong hands-on experience with Node.js and REST API development
• Solid experience with PostgreSQL , including schema design, query optimization, and data integrity
• Strong AWS experience with:Lambda
  SQS
  RDS
  API Gateway
  Secrets Manager
  
• Experience with event-driven architecture , queues, webhooks, retries, and failure handling
• Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and deployment automation
• Experience with OpenAPI / Swagger documentation
• Strong understanding of API scalability, observability, and backend reliability
• Experience working in Agile development environments
• Strong cross-functional communication and ownership mindset

Preferred / Good-to-Have Skills

• Experience with ACH payment systems , NACHA operating rules, and payment reconciliation
• Experience in fintech or regulated financial environments
• Knowledge of SOC 2 compliance, audit logging, and idempotency
• Experience with NestJS
• Exposure to Java / Spring Boot
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Claude, GitHub Copilot, or Cursor
• Team leadership or mentoring experience

Ideal Candidate Profile

• Strong backend engineer with experience in payments or fintech platforms
• Comfortable owning systems end-to-end, from architecture to production support
• Problem solver with strong debugging and incident management skills
• Thrives in startup environments with fast execution and high accountability