Senior Backend Engineer

The Alter Office; Bengaluru; Hybrid; INR 1,400,000 - 3,000,000; Full time

Job summary

The Alter Office is building a holistic AdTech platform with a focus on real-time ad marketplace, campaign management, and decisioning. This backend role centers on scalable architecture, robust APIs, and reliable data pipelines that power advertisers and publishers.

You'll own end-to-end backend systems, mentor engineers, and shape architecture decisions across AWS/GCP/Azure and microservices, enabling fast delivery and strong security in a fast-growing product environment.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of backend engineering experience, including product-building.
• Deep experience with a backend language (e.g., Node.js/Express, Python, Java, Go) in production.
• Strong SQL and NoSQL experience (MySQL, MongoDB) with data modeling ownership.
• Hands-on experience with Redis or similar caching layers.
• Strong RESTful API design skills and working knowledge of API security best practices.
• Solid grasp of asynchronous programming and event-driven architecture.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and cloud architecture.
• Knowledge of microservices and scalable system design.
• Experience mentoring engineers or leading small technical initiatives.
• Excellent problem-solving and communication; able to drive ambiguity to delivery.
• Experience with containers/orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) is a plus.
• Exposure to serverless architectures; familiarity with WebSockets or Kafka/RabbitMQ is a plus.
• Observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK) is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Own architecture, design, and implementation of backend systems and APIs behind our ad marketplace and campaign management.
• Architect and scale the data platforms and analytics/attribution/ROAS pipelines.
• Design and build backend systems behind autonomous AI agents for campaign decisions at scale.
• Make and own key technical decisions around availability, performance, and system design.
• Partner with product managers, other backend engineers, and DevOps to ship end-to-end features across the platform.
• Design and optimize data storage across relational (MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Redis) systems.
• Mentor engineers, run code and design reviews, and raise the technical bar across the team.
• Set and enforce standards for code quality, security, and performance.
• Own CI/CD pipelines and drive improvements to build, test, and deployment automation.
• Define and maintain test strategy, including unit and integration test coverage.
• Lead cloud infrastructure decisions (AWS/Azure/GCP) - deployment, scaling, and cost/performance tradeoffs.
• Lead system design reviews and represent the backend team in architectural discussions.
• Implement secure authentication/authorization and ensure sensitive data is properly encrypted.
• Evaluate and introduce event-driven and serverless patterns where they genuinely improve scalability or cost.

Skills

Backend ownership

RESTful API design

Asynchronous programming

Cloud platforms (AWS/GCP/Azure)

Microservices architecture

Mentoring engineers

Problem solving & communication

Caching (Redis)

SQL/NoSQL data modeling

Containerization (Docker)

Tools

Node.js/Express

Python

Java

Go

MySQL

MongoDB

Redis

Docker

Kubernetes

Kafka

RabbitMQ

Socket.io

Prometheus

Grafana

ELK

Job description

Our Story

At The Alter Office, we build what comes next. We operate as an internal innovation lab, creating stealth products, new business bets, and high-leverage systems designed to unlock disproportionate value for us and our partner company ITW Consulting.

Our work is not centered around being a conventional service partner. Instead, we focus on building products and platforms that solve complex, strategic problems and create long-term advantage. Where needed, we have stepped in on critical opportunities beyond the usual scope, especially when speed, product thinking, and execution depth mattered most.

About the Role

We are building a holistic AdTech platform that delivers premium value to both advertisers and publishers, and the backend is where that entire ecosystem actually runs - the ad marketplace, campaign creation, ad-serving decisioning, analytics collection, attribution, and ROAS measurement.

Concretely, that means large-scale architecture: the ad-serving systems that make real-time decisioning calls at volume, the scalable data platforms that ingest and process billions of events a day, the analytics platforms that turn that data into attribution and ROAS numbers advertisers and publishers trust, and the autonomous AI agents we're building to automate campaign optimization and decisioning across the platform.

We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer who thinks like a builder as much as an engineer - someone who'll be closely involved in how these areas take shape, from early product and architecture calls through to what actually ships, and who can bring that judgment to the backend team as the platform grows.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the architecture, design, and implementation of the backend systems and APIs behind our ad marketplace, campaign management, and ad-serving decisioning.

• Architect and scale the data platforms and analytics/attribution/ROAS-measurement pipelines that our advertisers and publishers rely on.

• Design and build the backend systems behind our autonomous AI agents - the infrastructure that lets them act on campaign and platform decisions reliably at scale.

• Make and be accountable for key technical decisions around availability, performance, and system design.

• Partner with product managers, other backend engineers, and DevOps to ship end-to-end features across the platform.

• Design and optimize data storage across relational (MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Redis) systems.

• Mentor engineers on the team, run code and design reviews, and raise the technical bar across the team.

• Set and enforce standards for code quality, security, and performance.

• Own CI/CD pipelines and drive improvements to build, test, and deployment automation.

• Define and maintain test strategy, including unit and integration test coverage.

• Lead cloud infrastructure decisions (AWS/Azure/GCP) - deployment, scaling, and cost/performance tradeoffs.

• Lead system design reviews and represent the backend team in architectural discussions.

• Implement secure authentication/authorization and ensure sensitive data is properly encrypted.

• Evaluate and introduce event-driven and serverless patterns where they genuinely improve scalability or cost.

Requirements

• 4+ years of backend engineering experience, including product-building (not just maintenance) work.

• Deep experience with a backend language and its ecosystem (e.g., Node.js/Express, Python, Java, Go); comfortable owning services end-to-end in production.

• Strong SQL and NoSQL experience (MySQL, MongoDB), with real ownership of data modeling and scaling decisions.

• Hands-on experience with Redis or similar caching layers.

• Strong RESTful API design skills and working knowledge of API security best practices.

• Solid grasp of asynchronous programming and event-driven architecture.

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and cloud architecture principles.

• Strong understanding of microservices and scalable system design.

• Experience mentoring other engineers or leading small technical initiatives.

• Excellent problem-solving and communication skills; comfortable driving a project from ambiguity to delivery.

• Experience with containerization/orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) is a plus.

• Exposure to serverless architectures is a plus.

• Familiarity with WebSockets (Socket.io) or message brokers (Kafka, RabbitMQ) is a plus.

• Experience with observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK) is a plus.

4+ years of backend engineering experience, including product-building (not just maintenance) work. Deep experience with a backend language and its ecosystem (e.g., Node.js/Express, Python, Java, Go); comfortable owning services end-to-end in production. Strong SQL and NoSQL experience (MySQL, MongoDB), with real ownership of data modeling and scaling decisions. Hands-on experience with Redis or similar caching layers. Strong RESTful API design skills and working knowledge of API security best practices. Solid grasp of asynchronous programming and event-driven architecture. Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and cloud architecture principles. Strong understanding of microservices and scalable system design. Experience mentoring other engineers or leading small technical initiatives. Excellent problem-solving and communication skills; comfortable driving a project from ambiguity to delivery. Experience with containerization/orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes) is a plus. Exposure to serverless architectures is a plus. Familiarity with WebSockets (Socket.io) or message brokers (Kafka, RabbitMQ) is a plus. Experience with observability tooling (Prometheus, Grafana, ELK) is a plus.