# Staff Backend Software Engineer

**Company:** [DAT Freight & Analytics](https://hotfix.jobs/companies/dat-freight-analytics)
**Location:** Denver, CO
**Role:** Backend Engineering
**Salary:** $172k – $223k/yr
**Experience:** 10+ years
**Skills:** Node.js, TypeScript, Express, AWS, EKS, Kubernetes, Kafka, Msk, MongoDB, Documentdb, Terraform, CI/CD, Observability
**Posted:** 2026-06-22

> Lead design and delivery of large-scale Node.js backend services and microservices on AWS. Own Tier-1 marketplace systems, mentor engineers, drive architecture and operational excellence.

## Job Description

## What You’ll Do

**Technical Leadership:** Lead the design and implementation of large-scale, high-performance backend systems and microservices using Node.js.

**Best Practices:** Drive the adoption of modern software development practices, including automated testing, conduct code reviews, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code.

**Cloud Architecture:** Architect, maintain and monitor robust, scalable and reliable services on AWS, leveraging services like EKS, MSK (Kafka), and S3.

**Mentorship:** Mentor other backend engineers and provide technical guidance to elevate the skill level of the entire team.

**Incident Management:** Lead the response and resolution for complex production incidents, perform root cause analysis, and implement preventative measures.

**Collaboration:** Work closely with cross-functional teams, including product managers, DevOps, and front-end engineers, to deliver timely, high-quality and performing end-to-end solutions.

## The Skills and Experience You’ll Bring

- 10+ years of experience in backend software development, including significant time as a senior or staff engineer owning complex, high‑throughput production services.
- Deep Node.js/TypeScript expertise, building and operating Express (or similar) HTTP APIs at scale.
- Proven experience owning Tier‑1, customer‑facing transaction systems (e.g., posting, booking, marketplace flows) with strict availability, correctness, and latency expectations.
- Extensive AWS experience with production backends, ideally including EKS/Kubernetes, Lambda, MSK/Kafka, DocumentDB or MongoDB, and Secrets Manager/S3/CloudWatch, plus infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform or similar).
- Strong background in event‑driven and distributed systems using Kafka/MSK.
- Expertise with document databases especially DocumentDB/MongoDB.
- Hands‑on experience with zero/low‑downtime migrations.
- Strong understanding of microservice and API contracts.
- Fluency with observability and on‑call health, designing dashboards, APM traces, logs, and alerts; defining SLOs; and using these tools to drive down incident frequency and MTTR.
- Experience establishing and raising engineering standards for a team: PR and testing guidelines (unit/contract/integration/smoke/end-to-end), deployment validation checklists, and post‑incident review practices.
- Demonstrated technical leadership: leading cross‑team designs in ambiguous problem spaces, writing clear system design documents, operations runbooks, and driving alignment across Engineering, Product, and Operations.
- Proven mentoring track record, especially helping mid‑level engineers grow in system design, observability, and operational excellence.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to explain trade‑offs and system behavior clearly to engineers, product managers, and non‑technical stakeholders.

## Compensation and Benefits

- Medical, Dental, Vision, Life, and AD&D insurance
- Parental Leave
- Flexible Vacation Time (FVT)
- An additional 10 holidays of paid time off per calendar year
- 401k matching (immediately vested)
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan
- Short- and Long-term disability sick leave
- Flexible Spending Accounts
- Health Savings Accounts
- Employee Assistance Program
- Additional programs - Employee Referral, Internal Recognition, and Wellness
- Free TriMet transit pass (Beaverton Office)
- Competitive salary and benefits package
- Work on impactful projects in a cutting-edge environment
- Collaborative and supportive team culture
- Opportunity to make a real difference in the trucking industry
- Employee Resource Groups

For Colorado-based candidates, the salary range for this role is $172,000.00 - $223,000.00 + target bonus.

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