Senior Software Engineer | Distributed Systems

Toku Ltd.; Rotterdam; Hybrid; EUR 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Toku Ltd. Rotterdam-based backend engineering role for distributed systems leader. As a Senior Backend Engineer, you design, build and operate the distributed systems powering our cloud communications platform, with a backend-first mindset and ownership across squads.

You'll work mainly in Go, contribute to architecture, implement APIs and integrations, and ensure reliability at scale across AWS, Kafka and other services. We value depth, autonomy and collaboration across the engineering team.

Qualifications

• Backend engineering: strong hands-on experience building production systems.
• Go (Golang): proven production backend experience.
• Distributed systems: design or operate scalable microservices.
• APIs & integrations: build and integrate production APIs.
• Cloud platforms: solid AWS experience preferred.
• Databases: strong SQL; NoSQL like DynamoDB or Redis helpful.
• Observability: experience with Grafana, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry.
• Ownership: proactive problem solving and architectural influence.

Responsibilities

• Design, build and evolve backend services and APIs.
• Develop scalable distributed systems and microservices.
• Implement event-driven platforms using Kafka, AWS SQS, RabbitMQ.
• Create backend integrations with external providers.
• Operate on AWS with cloud-native principles.
• Own production systems including monitoring and incident response.
• Contribute to platform modernisation and Go adoption.
• Design SQL data models and consider NoSQL options.
• Write clean, well-tested code and participate in code reviews.
• Proactively identify technical debt and drive improvements.

Skills

Go (Golang)

Distributed systems

APIs & integrations

Cloud platforms (AWS)

Databases & SQL

Observability

Architecture & ownership

Production engineering

TypeScript (nice to have)

Tools

Kafka

AWS SQS

RabbitMQ

DynamoDB

Job description

Senior Software Engineer | Distributed Systems

Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

Home Senior Software Engineer | Distributed Systems

Senior Software Engineer | Distributed Systems

At Toku, we create bespoke cloud communications and customer engagement solutions to reimagine customer experiences for enterprises. We provide an end-to-end approach to help businesses overcome the complexity of digital transformation and deliver mission-critical customer experiences through cloud communication solutions. Toku combines local strategic consulting expertise, bespoke technology, regional infrastructure, connectivity, and global reach to serve enterprises operating at scale across APAC and beyond. With Toku B.V. now established in the Netherlands, we are expanding our European engineering presence and building out our team from our Rotterdam base

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will play a backend-first technical role designing, building and operating the distributed systems that power Toku’s communications platform. Successful candidates may join one of several backend engineering squads depending on their technical strengths, experience and current business priorities, contributing to customer-facing platform capabilities, backend services, integrations, and shared engineering infrastructure.

You will work primarily in Go, building scalable distributed systems, backend integrations, cloud-native services and production-critical communication infrastructure. This role places a strong emphasis on backend engineering depth, architecture, distributed systems thinking, production ownership and technical initiative.

As we continue to scale our engineering organisation, we’re keen to hear from strong backend engineers across the mid, senior and technical lead individual contributor levels. We value engineering depth, ownership and systems thinking more than job titles or years of experience.

If you enjoy solving complex backend problems, improving architecture, reasoning about distributed systems and building software that operates reliably at scale, we’d love to hear from you.

What you will be doing

Backend services & APIs: Design, build and evolve robust backend services and APIs that power Toku’s cloud communications platform.

Distributed systems: Design and develop scalable distributed systems and microservices, making sound architectural decisions around service boundaries, scalability, reliability, latency, fault tolerance and operational simplicity.

Event-driven platforms: Build and evolve event-driven systems using technologies such as Kafka, AWS SQS, RabbitMQ and similar messaging platforms to support high-volume asynchronous communication workflows.

Backend integrations: Develop backend integrations connecting Toku’s platform with external communication providers, internal platform services and asynchronous workflows.

Cloud-native engineering: Develop and operate backend services on AWS using modern cloud-native engineering principles.

Architecture & technical leadership: Contribute to technical direction, challenge existing designs, improve architecture and help evolve backend systems toward simpler, more scalable and maintainable solutions.

Production ownership: Own backend systems in production, including monitoring, troubleshooting, performance optimisation, reliability improvements, incident investigation and continuous operational improvement.

Platform evolution: Contribute to the ongoing modernisation of backend services, including increased adoption of Go, event-driven architecture and scalable distributed systems.

Data & persistence: Design and optimise SQL-based data models, ensuring performance, correctness and scalability. Exposure to NoSQL technologies is advantageous.

Engineering quality: Write clean, maintainable and well-tested code, and participate actively in design discussions, code reviews and technical decision-making.

Ownership & initiative: Proactively identify technical debt, recurring engineering problems and opportunities for improvement, driving solutions through to completion while collaborating across multiple engineering squads.

We’d love to hear from you if you have

Backend engineering: Strong hands-on experience designing, building and operating production backend systems. Engineering depth and ownership are valued more than strict years of experience.

Go (Golang): Strong practical experience developing production backend services in Go.

Distributed systems: Experience designing or operating distributed systems, microservices and backend architectures, with an understanding of scalability, latency, resilience, fault tolerance and system trade-offs.

Event-driven architectures: Practical experience working with technologies such as Kafka, AWS SQS, RabbitMQ or similar streaming platforms.

APIs & integrations: Experience designing, building and integrating production APIs and backend services.

Cloud platforms: Strong cloud engineering fundamentals. AWS experience is preferred, although candidates with solid Azure or GCP experience are also encouraged to apply.

Databases: Strong SQL knowledge including schema design, query optimisation and production data management. Experience with NoSQL technologies such as DynamoDB, Cassandra or Redis is advantageous.

Production engineering: Experience operating production systems, including monitoring, troubleshooting, incident response, performance optimisation and continuous reliability improvements.

Architecture & ownership: Demonstrated ability to improve existing systems, influence technical direction and proactively solve engineering problems rather than simply delivering assigned tasks.

Observability: Experience with observability and monitoring tools such as Grafana, Prometheus, OpenTelemetry, Datadog or similar technologies.

TypeScript (nice to have): Exposure to TypeScript or Node.js backend services is useful, particularly when working with existing services.

Communications domain (nice to have): Experience within CPaaS, CCaaS, UCaaS, messaging, voice, telephony or communications platforms would be advantageous.

Location: This role is to be based in The Netherlands (Hybrid). We are open to considering other EU country based candidates, who are willing to relocate to The Netherlands, now or in the future.

Toku has been recognised as a LinkedIn Top Startup and by the Financial Times as one of APAC’s Top 500 High Growth Companies. If you’re looking to build reliable, scalable distributed systems while making a tangible impact on a growing global platform, we’d love to hear from you.