Senior Backend Engineer (Platform)

MCS Group | Your Specialist Recruitment Consultancy; Belfast City District; Hybrid; GBP 65,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

15% bonus

Lifestyle allowance £400

Career progression

Flexible hybrid (3 days in Belfast)

AI and emerging tech exposure

Job summary

MCS Group | Your Specialist Recruitment Consultancy in Belfast is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to join a compact, highly technical Platform team building and scaling a critical technology platform. The role is around 90% backend, with some frontend work welcomed.

You'll own and shape backend services, APIs and architecture, work with Node.js/TS, Go and Python when needed, and operate across databases, security and production reliability.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of engineering experience with backend focus.
• Strong backend development experience and system design skills.
• Ability to discuss architecture, data stores and security.

Responsibilities

• Design and build scalable backend services and APIs.
• Contribute to architecture and system design.
• Work with databases and understand data stores.
• Consider application and API security.
• Troubleshoot performance and production issues.
• Understand deployment, monitoring and maintenance in production.

Skills

TypeScript/Node.js

Go

Python

Kubernetes

Docker

AWS

Tools

Kubernetes

Docker

AWS

Job description

We're looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to join a small, highly technical Platform team building and scaling a critical technology platform.

The role is around 90% backend, but the team typically hires strong full-stack engineers, so some frontend experience would be a nice bonus.

Belfast | Hybrid | Permanent | Senior

The Tech

The core stack is:

• TypeScript / Node.js/ AWS
• Microservices
• Kubernetes / Docker
• Event-driven architecture
• SQL and other data stores

There is also some Go and Python, although Go isn't essential.

We're open on backend languages if you have strong engineering fundamentals and can demonstrate you've successfully picked up new languages before.

What you'll be doing

This is a role with a lot of ownership. You'll be involved in designing, building and running backend services rather than simply picking up tickets.

You'll be expected to:

• Design and build scalable backend services and APIs.
• Contribute to architecture and system design.
• Work with databases and understand why different data stores are used.
• Think about application and API security.
• Troubleshoot performance and production issues, including things like CPU, memory and latency.
• Understand how your services are deployed, monitored and maintained in production.

What we're looking for

Around 5+ years' engineering experience with strong backend development experience.

The key thing is technical depth rather than ticking every technology box.

We want someone who can talk confidently about a system they've built - how it was architected, why decisions were made, what data stores were used, how it was secured, where the bottlenecks were and how they dealt with issues once it was live.

The Team

You’ll join a small team of around 4-5 engineers, predominantly Senior level.

There’s no dedicated DevOps engineer within the team, so engineers take ownership of the services they build, including deployment, monitoring and troubleshooting.

It’s a good fit for someone who enjoys ownership, problem-solving and modern engineering, rather than needing lots of day-to-day direction.

A few extras

• 15% bonus
• £400 lifestyle allowance
• Clear engineering career progression
• Flexible hybrid working, typically 3 days in the Belfast office
• Opportunity to work with AI and emerging technology as the platform evolves

If you're a strong backend engineer who enjoys understanding how systems actually work, solving problems and having a real influence on architecture, we'd be keen to hear from you.

Rachael Walker

[e-mail]

02896935487