Lead Software Engineer (Backend)

Title: Lead Software Engineer (Backend)

We are seeking a passionate Lead Software Engineer (Backend) to help us design, architect and build our core backend services. In this role, you’ll contribute to the architectural direction of our platform and implement scalable and observable systems. You will also contribute to the deployment, operation, and maintenance of our infrastructure.

Responsibilities

• In this role, you’ll contribute to the architectural direction of our platform and implement scalable and observable systems.
• Contribute to the deployment, operation, and maintenance of our infrastructure.
• Design, architect, build and maintain our core backend services that power Knock’s customer-facing applications and communicate your designs to fellow engineers.
• Build new services from scratch, as well as maintain existing systems.
• Commit to good engineering practices of security, testing, logging, alerting, and deployment processes.
• Continually learn, grow, and expand your knowledge while also supporting others' learning experiences; act as a mentor and be a resource for others inside and outside of your team.
• Demonstrate a high level of ownership for the Knock platform and our customer experience.
• Participate in the on-call rotation (required).
• Express a breadth and depth of knowledge: the Lead Software Engineer has deep knowledge of software engineering in multiple domains.
• Design systems with scalability in mind, making choices appropriate for the expected volume of traffic and data both now and in the future.
• Apply advanced computer science concepts to solve real-world problems.
• Design solutions with simplicity and consistency, enabling elegant, composable architecture to scale complex software systems.
• Communicate and exchange accurate information to others via telephone or internet video applications.

You Should:

• Have a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, or related technical discipline AND 10+ years of software development experience in a professional work environment.
• Believe in creating diverse, equitable, and inclusive practices and programs that will further Knock’s commitment to making an impact, learning, putting people first, being open, and courageous.
• Have proven success working 100% remote in prior positions and are experienced working with a distributed, national team.
• Be able to adapt to a rapidly changing startup environment and willing to learn new technologies and tools while working with existing data and services.
• Be able to author, present and communicate technical designs and processes to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Technical Qualifications - You’ll Bring:

• Programming proficiency in designing and implementing services in Node.js and TypeScript (bonus) with experience in common frameworks such as Fastify.
• Understanding of software design principles and experience with the full lifecycle software development including requirements gathering, development, testing, troubleshooting, deployment, instrumentation, and monitoring.
• RDBMS and SQL experience (MySQL or PostgreSQL), general DB design, writing, and optimizing queries.
• Experience designing RESTful and/or RPC style APIs to drive web experiences, and service to service functionality for business entities and data manipulation.
• Experience in Infrastructure with at least one major cloud provider, ideally AWS (we use ECS, RDS, Lambda, S3, SNS, SQS, CloudWatch, etc.) as well as Terraform.
• Experience in building and updating CI/CD pipelines (bonus).
• Experience with DynamoDB, S3, SQS, and Kinesis (bonus).
• Familiarity with logging, debugging, and application performance monitoring tools.

Physical Requirements:

• Set up and constantly operate a computer.
• Communicate and exchange accurate information to others via telephone or internet video applications.
• Must be available on scheduled weekends and overnights for on-call escalations.

Compensation and Benefits:

The candidate must be able to perform the essential functions of the job, with or without reasonable accommodation.

Our Compensation Philosophy: As a remote-first fully remote (U.S.-based) workforce, our goal is to ensure that all Knockstars are fairly compensated. Please note that the salary range information that follows is a good faith estimate for this position: $162,000 - $212,000 USD. This job posting expires on March 31, 2024.