Backend Engineer

About the Role

We’re looking for a pragmatic Backend Engineer to design and build reliable services and APIs that power our products. You’ll work with Node.js or Spring Boot, model databases, optimize performance, and collaborate closely with frontend and DevOps to ship secure, scalable systems.

Responsibilities

• Design data models and own schema changes for relational databases.
• Build clean, well-documented RESTful APIs (GraphQL experience is a plus).
• Implement business logic, validation, error handling, and observability.
• Integrate third-party services (auth, payments, email, storage, etc.).
• Write automated tests and participate in code reviews for reliability and security.
• Collaborate with frontend teams to define contracts and improve developer experience.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience with Node.js (Express/NestJS) or Java (Spring Boot).
• Proficiency with build/dependency tools such as Maven (or Gradle).
• Strong SQL skills with PostgreSQL/MySQL, including indexing and query optimization.
• API design, versioning, and documentation (Swagger/OpenAPI).
• Solid understanding of auth (JWT/OAuth2), encryption, and common security practices.
• Comfortable with Git/GitHub workflows and basic CI (lint, test, build).
• Good engineering hygiene: logging, monitoring, alerting, and performance analysis.

Nice to Have

• ORM experience: Prisma (Node) or JPA/Hibernate (Java).
• Caching and messaging: Redis, RabbitMQ/Kafka.
• Containers and deployment: Docker, CI/CD, Vercel/Render/AWS/GCP/Azure.
• API gateways, rate limiting, progressive rollout and rollback strategies.
• Basic DevOps and familiarity with IaC (Terraform/CDK).

Why HashWhales

• Work on real products with visible business impact.
• Healthy engineering culture with thoughtful code reviews.
• Growth paths toward architecture, platform, or full-stack roles.
• Remote-friendly, focused on outcomes and quality.