> Markdown version of [/jobs/ext/2729274-backend-engineer](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/jobs/ext/2729274-backend-engineer). Every page supports `.md` or `Accept: text/markdown`. Links point to the HTML versions so they work for humans too. Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # backend engineer - **Company:** Kombo - **Location:** Berlin, Germany (Remote available) - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), Applicant Tracking Systems, Profiling, Databases, Continuous Integration, Cursor (Graphical User Interface Elements), Software Debugging, Programming Tools, Distributed Systems, PostgreSQL, Node.Js, Memory Leaks, TypeScript, Web Services, Parquet, Google Cloud, Indexer, Backend, Rate Limiting, Git, Kubernetes, Terraform - **Published:** September 5, 2026 - **Apply:** https://startup.jobs/senior-backend-engineer-platform-team-kombo-9931451 ## About the Role First and foremost, we are looking for an excellent backend engineer. You do not need to arrive as an expert in every part of our infrastructure, but you should have strong software engineering fundamentals and be genuinely excited to work closer to infrastructure, reliability, and developer tooling., * Strong backend engineering fundamentals and experience building production services, APIs, and database-backed systems * A methodical approach to debugging complex problems and finding their actual root cause * The diligence to make high-risk changes safely, including thinking through failure modes, observability, rollout, and rollback * The ability to own ambiguous technical problems and communicate clearly without needing close management * Curiosity and the ability to learn unfamiliar parts of a system quickly Strong signals * Deep experience with TypeScript and Node.js * Postgres performance work, including query analysis, indexing, or data-model design * Profiling, benchmarking, tracing, or debugging production systems * Ownership of large-scale or high-risk migrations * Experience with distributed systems, internal tooling, or shared backend infrastructure Helpful, but not required * Kubernetes, GCP, and Terraform * CI/CD systems and local development environments * Observability and incident response * Security or compliance work * Low-level networking or operating-system knowledge, * You love building things and take pride in your engineering work. You will be among peers at Kombo. * You get excited about technical problems without an obvious root cause. You form hypotheses, follow the evidence across application code, databases, and infrastructure, and keep investigating until you understand what is actually happening. * You care about how systems behave in production. You think about performance, failure modes, rollout safety, and how you will know whether a change works before shipping it. * You enjoy working across boundaries. You may change backend code, infrastructure, observability, or developer tooling depending on what the problem requires. You do not need to be an expert in all of these areas already, but you are excited to learn them deeply. * You take ownership of ambiguous problems and communicate progress, blockers, and uncertainty clearly without needing to be managed closely. * You appreciate radically candid feedback and want to work in an environment where you can also give it. * You love the energy of being in the office, contribute actively to that environment, and work alongside motivated people. ## Description You will work across both backend code and infrastructure. Deep prior expertise in every part of our stack is not required, but strong software engineering fundamentals and genuine excitement about infrastructure-heavy problems are. Just some examples of projects you would've worked on in the past: * migrating all our API services from Cloud Run to Kubernetes, including autoscaling, graceful shutdown, traffic routing, and production health dashboards * investigating and fixing memory leaks in our Node.js application using heap snapshots, allocation profiles, and garbage collection metrics * investigating Postgres performance bottlenecks using query plans and production traces, then improving queries and designing appropriate indexes * designing and rolling out a new scalable and more cost-efficient storage layer for our customer-facing logs product using Google Cloud Storage and Parquet * building a flexible static egress IP infrastructure so integration partners and enterprise customers can allowlist Kombo traffic * moving alerting and on-call from OpsGenie to incident.io, including team routing, priorities, severity tagging, and Terraform-managed alert policies * collaborating with our ATS Product Engineering team to design a new syncing approach that fixes timeout and rate limiting troubles when synchronizing data for large ATS tenants * improving local developer tooling with Cursor/Claude/Codex workflows, VS Code tasks, Git hooks, gcloud auth helpers, and CI automation While we're currently the ones holding "god mode" access to our infrastructure and handling on-call for P1/P2 alerts, part of our work for the coming 1-2 years will be empowering the individual Product Engineering teams to own and operate more of their own infrastructure - making sure we can scale our Engineering org without us becoming the bottleneck. ## Related Videos - [How a Small Team Shrank a Microsoft Monorepo by 94%](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1236-how-a-small-team-shrank-a-microsoft-monorepo-by-94) - [Developing the Backend with Stefan Lingler, CTO at Shpock](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100360-developing-the-backend-with-stefan-lingler-cto-at-shpock) - [Optimizing Discovery: PostgreSQL's Role in Transforming GetYourGuide's Search](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1647-optimizing-discovery-postgresql-s-role-in-transforming-getyourguide-s-search) - [Inside Bitpanda's Tech Stack: Scaling a European Fintech Leader - Markus Dorner](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1979-inside-bitpanda-s-tech-stack-scaling-a-european-fintech-leader-markus-dorner) - [Meet Your New BFF: Backend to Frontend without the Duct Tape](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/682-meet-your-new-bff-backend-to-frontend-without-the-duct-tape) - [Git for Code Reviews](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/429-git-for-code-reviews) ## Related Articles - [Find a Developer Job: 12 Best Job Sites For Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/165-find-a-developer-job-12-best-job-sites-for-developers) - [Where To Find Software Engineering Jobs](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/396-where-to-find-software-engineering-jobs) - [Fully Remote Software Engineer Jobs](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/447-fully-remote-software-engineer-jobs) - [Finding Jobs in Germany](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/375-finding-jobs-in-germany) - [Is Software Engineering Over-Saturated?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/418-is-software-engineering-over-saturated) - [Where to Find Entry-Level Software Engineering Jobs](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/397-where-to-find-entry-level-software-engineering-jobs)