# Senior Backend Engineer

**Company:** [BuildOps](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/buildops)
**Location:** San Francisco, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Raleigh, NC
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $168k – $210k/yr
**Experience:** 5+ years
**Skills:** Node.js, TypeScript, GraphQL, Rest, Apollo, SQL, NoSQL, Docker, Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, Python, Event-Driven Architectures, Observability Tools, AI Tools
**Posted:** 2026-04-28

> Builds and maintains scalable backend services and APIs using Node.js/TypeScript, GraphQL/REST for web/mobile experiences. Owns full development lifecycle, optimizes performance, mentors engineers; requires 5+ years backend experience and AI tool proficiency.

## Job Description

## What You'll Do
- Build and maintain backend services and APIs (GraphQL and REST) using Node.js and TypeScript
- Design and evolve real-time, event-driven systems that power core BuildOps workflows
- Drive the full software development lifecycle: requirements, design docs, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance
- Write clean, well-tested, well-documented code with appropriate abstractions and automated tests
- Improve observability and reliability with the right metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting
- Profile and optimize services for latency, throughput, and cost efficiency
- Use and help standardize AI-powered tools for code generation, refactoring, debugging, test creation, and analysis
- Collaborate closely with product, design, and other partners to translate business needs into technical solutions and tradeoffs
- Participate in and often lead technical design reviews, code reviews, and architecture discussions
- Mentor other engineers, share best practices, and help raise the overall bar for the team

## What We Look For

### Must-Have Skills
- 5+ years of professional experience in backend or full-stack development, including 1–2+ years in a senior or lead capacity on large-scale applications
- Strong experience building distributed web applications and backend services (microservices or service-oriented architectures)
- Deep hands-on experience with Node.js (preferably with TypeScript) in production environments
- Experience designing, building, and maintaining GraphQL (Apollo) and/or REST APIs
- Solid database design and modeling experience (SQL and/or NoSQL) and understanding of tradeoffs between different storage technologies
- Strong computer science fundamentals: data structures, algorithms, concurrency, and object-oriented or typed design
- Proven experience using AI tools to enhance your development workflow (e.g., code generation, refactoring, debugging, test creation, or analysis), plus curiosity about emerging AI technologies
- Ability to take ownership of projects end to end and operate proactively in an ambiguous, fast-paced environment
- Excellent communication and collaboration skills; you listen well, seek context, and explain technical decisions clearly

### Nice To Have Skills
- BS or MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field
- Experience with:
  - Event-driven architectures and messaging systems
  - Cloud platforms (e.g., GCP, AWS, or similar)
  - Containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes)
  - Additional backend languages or ecosystems (e.g., Python) for services, automation, or data pipelines
- Experience with observability tooling (metrics, logging, tracing) and performance profiling in distributed systems
- Exposure to machine learning or data-driven systems

## Compensation
- $168,000 - $210,000 base salary range + annual bonus

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