Senior Backend Engineer

SQUID; Dublin; On-site; EUR 110,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

SQUID in Dublin, Ireland is building a loyalty and rewards platform to strengthen customer relationships and local communities. We seek a Senior Backend Engineer (Architecture & Platform) to own backend architecture, mentor engineers and drive scalable, secure production systems.

You will design and review production code, work with product and engineering teams, and shape the platform's evolution while staying hands-on in implementation and integration work.

Qualifications

• Seven+ years of backend engineering experience with architectural ownership.
• Demonstrated ability to make system design decisions and lead technical initiatives.
• Experience designing secure, reliable REST APIs and working with production systems on cloud platforms (GCP).
• Strong knowledge of relational databases, data modelling and SQL.
• Experience with payments integrations and external APIs, observability and CI/CD.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the architecture of SQUID's backend platform.
• Lead system design for new products, services and partner integrations.
• Build and maintain production services and APIs using TypeScript and Node.js.
• Balance scalability, reliability, delivery speed and cost, and document key decisions.
• Mentor engineers, review code, and drive engineering standards across the team.
• Lead technical responses to production issues and partner integrations.

Skills

Backend architecture

System design

REST APIs

Node.js

TypeScript

SQL

GCP

Distributed systems

Payments integrations

Observability

CI/CD

Debugging

Code review

Mentoring

Engineering leadership

Education

Computer Science degree

Tools

Stripe

Firebase

Cloud Run

Cloud SQL

Pub/Sub

BigQuery

Job description

SQUID is building a loyalty and rewards platform that helps retailers create stronger, more valuable relationships with their customers and local communities. Our platform supports hundreds of thousands of users and processes millions of transactions across loyalty, rewards, payments and partner integrations. As we enter our next stage of growth, we are continuing to strengthen the scalability, reliability and technical foundations of the platform.

The Role

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer (Architecture & Platform) to take technical ownership of our backend architecture and play a central role in the continued development of the SQUID platform.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will make important architectural and system-design decisions while continuing to design, build and review production code. You will work closely with our product and engineering teams to turn business requirements into pragmatic technical solutions. You will have the autonomy to improve how our systems are designed, documented, operated and evolved.

This is a technical leadership position rather than a people-management role, although you will be expected to support and mentor other engineers and help raise engineering standards across the team.

What You'll Do

• Own and evolve the architecture of SQUID's backend platform.
• Lead system design for new products, services and partner integrations.
• Build and maintain production services and APIs using TypeScript and Node.js.
• Make pragmatic architectural decisions that balance scalability, reliability, delivery speed and cost.
• Document important technical decisions and communicate their trade-offs clearly.
• Improve the performance, security, observability and resilience of our systems.
• Establish and promote standards for API design, testing, code quality and operational readiness.
• Review code and provide technical guidance to other engineers.
• Identify and prioritise technical debt alongside product delivery.
• Lead the technical response to complex production issues and help prevent recurrence.
• Work with external partners on integrations involving payments, rewards, webhooks and customer data.
• Collaborate closely with product, design and commercial teams from discovery through to delivery.

What We're Looking For

• Significant professional backend engineering experience, typically seven or more years.
• Demonstrable experience making architectural and system-design decisions.
• Strong knowledge of relational databases, data modelling and SQL.
• Experience designing secure, reliable and well-documented REST APIs.
• Experience operating production systems on a public cloud platform, ideally GCP.
• A strong understanding of distributed systems, scalability, reliability and failure handling.
• Experience integrating with third-party platforms such as payment providers, rewards partners or other external APIs.
• Strong debugging and problem-solving skills across applications, databases and infrastructure.
• Experience with automated testing, CI/CD, monitoring and observability.
• The ability to explain complex technical decisions clearly to technical and non-technical colleagues.
• A collaborative, pragmatic approach and a willingness to remain hands-on.

Nice to Have

• Experience with high-volume transaction, payments, loyalty, rewards or fintech platforms.
• Experience with GCP services such as Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub or BigQuery.
• Knowledge of webhook design, idempotency, authentication and HMAC request signing.
• Experience with Stripe, Firebase or similar platforms.
• Familiarity with React or other frontend technologies.
• Experience with NoSQL databases, event-driven systems or geospatial data.
• Experience mentoring engineers or acting as the technical lead for a team or platform.
• Experience working in a scaling startup or product-led technology company.

Qualifications

A degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or a related field is welcome but not required. Equivalent professional experience is equally valued.

What Success Looks Like

Within your first six months, you will have developed a strong understanding of the SQUID

platform, taken ownership of key architectural decisions, improved the clarity of our technical

roadmap and delivered meaningful improvements to the reliability and scalability of our

backend systems. You will be someone the wider engineering team can rely on for sound technical judgment while remaining closely involved in building and shipping the platform.