Principal Backend Engineer

Principal Backend Engineer – Music Discovery Platform At Harman International, we are revolutionizing music metadata management and discovery. We’re seeking a Principal Backend Engineer to lead the development of scalable, high-performance backend systems powering our music discovery platform. As a Backend Engineer on our Data Team, you will build scalable, cutting‑edge solutions that power world‑class music metadata services. What You Will Do Architect and develop robust, scalable, and secure APIs for music catalog, recommendation, and search. Design data models and manage integrations with third‑party music metadata providers, streaming services, and analytics platforms. Lead backend engineering efforts, set coding standards, review code, and mentor junior engineers. Collaborate with product, frontend, and data teams to define API contracts and deliver seamless user experiences. Optimize performance of backend services, ensuring low latency and high availability. Implement observability tools for monitoring, logging, and alerting to ensure system reliability. Drive technical innovation, evaluate new technologies and frameworks to improve development velocity and system capabilities. Requirements 10+ years of backend services development. Strong understanding of modern backend development tools. Proficiency in Node.js, Python, Go, or similar backend languages. Deep understanding of API design, microservices architecture, and cloud‑native development. Hands‑on experience with GCP, AWS, or Azure. Expertise with Docker, Kubernetes, and serverless architectures. Proficiency with CI/CD automated pipelines. Experience with databases (PostgreSQL, BigQuery), caching strategies, and message queues (Kafka, RabbitMQ). Familiarity with music metadata standards, recommendation systems, or audio streaming APIs is a plus. Bonus Points Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field. Experience with machine learning pipelines or recommendation engines. Experience with machine learning workloads in production. Experience with audio music streaming services. Knowledge of music theory, audio fingerprinting, or digital signal processing. Familiarity with C# and .NET technologies. Contributions to open‑source projects or technical blogs. Passion for delivering top‑notch audio experiences to users. Eligible Candidates Position is 100% remote. Available for meetings during typical continental US business hours. Willing to travel up to 5% domestically and internationally. Will successfully complete a background investigation and drug screen as a condition of employment. Compensation & Benefits Pay Transparency: $144,000 – $211,200 (depends on experience, skill set, location, and business need). Bonus and commission may be available. Benefits include: Competitive wellness benefits, 401(k) retirement savings plan, inclusive and diverse work environment, flexible work schedule, professional development opportunities, tuition reimbursement, employee discounts on HARMAN products, employee recognition program. Equal Opportunity Employer HARMAN is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. HARMAN strives to hire the best qualified candidates and is committed to building a workforce representative of diverse marketplaces and communities. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, or protected veteran or disability status. #J-18808-Ljbffr