Staff Software Engineer, Backend

Job Description

Job Description

At AmaWaterways, we believe meaningful careers begin with purpose, passion and a shared commitment to delivering unforgettable experiences. For those who value curiosity, connection and personal enrichment, AmaWaterways offers the opportunity to help craft meaningful river journeys that invite travelers to follow their own current. Built on a foundation of heartfelt hospitality, we treat our guests—and each other—with genuine care, warmth and respect. AmaWaterways fosters a collaborative environment both onboard our ships and across our global network of offices, where team members grow together, support one another and take pride in upholding the high standards and thoughtful service our company is known for.

We invite talented, motivated professionals to explore our career opportunities and begin their journey with AmaWaterways today.

SUMMARY

The Staff Software Engineer, Backend role is responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the platform, services, and APIs that power AmaWaterways' consumer and partner digital products, from inception through implementation and ongoing maintenance. Working primarily within the .NET services backbone (Inventory Service, Leads pipeline, identity/auth, pricing, and supporting APIs), the Staff Software Engineer, Backend architects scalable, secure, and high-performing backend solutions and the integration patterns that connect booking, inventory, guest-experience, and partner systems. This role emphasizes strong platform engineering, RESTful and GraphQL API design, service and data architecture, and cloud-native delivery on Microsoft Azure. The Staff Software Engineer, Backend combines deep hands-on engineering with technical design ownership and mentorship, translating business and product requirements into robust technical designs while collaborating across engineering, QA, Product, and Platform Engineering teams. The role operates within an application engineering scrum team; specific team assignment will be determined based on portfolio needs at time of hire.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain scalable, secure, and high-performance backend services and APIs (.NET / C#, RESTful and GraphQL) that support booking, inventory, pricing, lead capture, identity, and guest-experience use cases.
• Architect backend systems, services, and integration patterns, producing technical design documentation (TDDs), architecture diagrams, and decision records for new features and system improvements.
• Translate business and product requirements into sound technical designs, clearly communicating scope, effort, risk, and trade-offs to engineering and product stakeholders.
• Design and optimize data access and persistence layers, including relational database design, complex SQL, query performance tuning, and appropriate use of caching and NoSQL/data-layer patterns.
• Build and maintain secure, well-documented APIs and service contracts, with attention to versioning, error handling, caching, observability, and secure data flows across internal and external systems.
• Integrate backend services with external data sources, partner systems, and identity/access management platforms, ensuring reliable and secure data exchange.
• Optimize services for scalability, throughput, and low-latency performance, and support production reliability through monitoring, logging, telemetry, and alerting.
• Establish and uphold engineering standards for code quality, security, performance, observability, and incident response across owned services.
• Conduct and participate in code reviews, enforce branching and pull-request workflows, and uphold the team's Definition of Ready and Definition of Done tied to CI/CD gates.
• Perform root-cause analysis, troubleshooting, and escalation for production issues and incidents; participate in on-call rotation as required.
• Provide effort estimations and delivery commitments in support of roadmap planning and sprint execution.
• Provide mentorship and technical guidance to mid-level and junior engineers on coding standards, architectural patterns, and backend best practices.
• Champion automation and modern solutions, including the appropriate use of AI-enabled development tools and AI-powered capabilities, where they improve quality, velocity, and reliability.
• Partner with QA, Product, UX/UI, and Platform Engineering to deliver iterative, high-quality releases in an Agile/Scrum environment.
• Stay current with emerging backend technologies, cloud services, API and identity patterns, security standards, AI tooling, and development practices, and evaluate their applicability to AmaWaterways.
• Contributes to and maintains technical documentation such as design specifications, API documentation, and system documentation.
• Performs other related duties as assigned by management.

SUPERVISORY RESPONSIBILITIES

This is a senior individual-contributor role that carries out technical guidance responsibilities in accordance with the organization's policies and applicable laws, rather than direct people-management authority:

• Providing day-to-day technical direction, guidance, and mentorship to mid-level and junior engineers on the team.
• Providing technical input and sign-off on assigned work within areas of ownership.
• Assisting with interviewing and evaluating candidates for engineering roles when needed.
• Supporting the onboarding and training process to ensure adherence to development standards and best practices.
• Coordinating assigned technical work, monitoring progress, and helping ensure timely delivery.
• Contributing input to performance discussions by offering feedback on technical productivity and professional development.
• Helping to address minor project-related concerns and escalating issues to senior engineers or the Director when appropriate.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor's Degree (BA/BS) from a four-year college or university in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline, or five or more years of related experience and/or training, or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Computer skills required: Contact Management Systems; Development Software; Inventory Software; Microsoft Office Suite; Project Management Software, Database Software, Design Software, Internet Software, Spreadsheet Software, Word Processing Software, Electronic Mail Software, Presentation Software, Reservation Software, Phone Software.
• Other skills required :

• Five or more years of professional software engineering experience with a strong emphasis on backend and platform development.
• Deep hands-on expertise building backend services and APIs with .NET / C# (and/or Node.js), including RESTful and GraphQL API design and implementation.
• Proven experience architecting scalable, secure backend platforms and services supporting booking, inventory, pricing, lead capture, identity, and guest-experience use cases.
• Strong experience analyzing, documenting, and designing software system and service architectures, including integration patterns between internal and external systems.
• Strong experience with relational database design and development (SQL Server, PostgreSQL), writing complex SQL, and performing data analysis and query performance tuning.
• Familiarity with NoSQL/data-layer and caching patterns (e.g., Redis).
• Experience debugging, profiling, and performance tuning backend services and applications.
• Ability to use unit testing tools and apply test-driven development (TDD) practices.
• Professional working experience with XML/XSL, JSON, and SOAP; experience with message-based and event-driven patterns is a plus.
• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (preferably Microsoft Azure), including app hosting, API management, messaging/service bus, storage, networking, and security concepts.
• Experience designing, building, and maintaining CI/CD pipelines using tools such as Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, or similar, across multiple environments (Dev, QA, UAT, Prod).
• Experience with automated build, test, and deployment processes.
• Familiarity with infrastructure-as-code concepts and tools (ARM templates, Bicep, Terraform, or similar) is a plus.
• Experience with observability tooling (Dash0, Datadog, New Relic, or equivalent), application logging, telemetry, and alerting.
• Experience integrating identity and access management using Auth0 or equivalent (OIDC/OAuth2, SSO, JWT).
• Strong understanding of secure coding practices and application security principles (OWASP Top 10, SAST/DAST, secrets management) and PCI considerations for consumer-facing booking and payment flows.
• CompTIA Security+ or other relevant technical/security certification is a plus.

• AI & Emerging Technology (Preferred, Not Required):

• Experience evaluating and applying AI-enabled development tools and AI-powered capabilities to improve engineering quality and velocity is a strong plus.
• Hands-on experience with Claude or comparable AI assistants and coding tools (e.g., for code generation, code review, test authoring, or documentation) is a plus.
• Familiarity with building AI-enabled features and integration patterns, such as LLM APIs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), agentic workflows, or the Model Context Protocol (MCP), is a plus.
• Interest in responsibly incorporating AI into backend services and developer workflows, with attention to data privacy, security, and cost.

• Process & Collaboration :

• Skilled using Git and GitHub (or Azure DevOps) for version control, including branching strategies, code reviews, and pull-request workflows.
• Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments, including estimation, sprint planning, and Definition of Done tied to CI/CD gates.
• Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Ability to mentor junior engineers and provide technical guidance.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to translate technical concepts for engineering, product, and business audiences.
• Ability to balance multiple priorities and deliver high-quality solutions on time.
• Hospitality, travel, cruise, or e-commerce experience is preferred.

COMPETENCIES

• Diversity - Shows respect and sensitivity for cultural differences; Promotes a harassment-free environment.
• Analytical - Synthesizes complex or diverse information; Collects and researches data; Uses intuition and experience to complement data; Designs workflows and procedures.
• Customer Service - Manages difficult or emotional customer situations; Responds promptly to customer needs; Solicits customer feedback to improve service; Responds to requests for service and assistance; Meets commitments.
• Dependability - Follows instructions, responds to management direction; Takes responsibility for own actions; Keeps commitments to long hours of work when necessary to reach goals; Completes tasks on time or notifies appropriate person with an alternate plan.
• Design - Generates creative solutions; Uses feedback to modify designs; Applies design principles; Demonstrates attention to detail.
• Initiative - Volunteers readily; Undertakes self-development activities; Seeks increased responsibilities; Takes independent actions and calculated risks; Looks for and takes advantage of opportunities; Asks for and offers help when needed.
• Innovation - Displays original thinking and creativity; Meets challenges with resourcefulness; Generates suggestions for improving work; Develops innovative approaches and ideas; Presents ideas and information in a manner that gets others' attention.
• Teamwork - Balances team and individual responsibilities; Exhibits objectivity and openness to others' views; Gives and welcomes feedback; Contributes to building a positive team spirit; Supports everyone's efforts to succeed.

PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORK ENVIRONMENT

• Occasionally required to stand
• Occasionally required to walk
• Continually required to sit
• Continually required to utilize hand and finger dexterity
• Frequently required to talk or hear 
• While performing the duties of this job, the noise level in the work environment is usually moderate 
• The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds 
• Specific vision abilities required by this job includes Close Vision