Staff Backend Engineer

Manychat; Amsterdam; Hybrid; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid onboarding

Relocation support

Health insurance for you and family

Professional development budget

Flexible benefits budget

Hybrid work and flexible time off

Free meals and snacks in office

Annual offsites and team building

Job summary

Manychat is seeking a Staff Backend Engineer for Brands to own the technical side of a new product. You’ll set architecture and priorities, deciding what lives in Python services versus the PHP-based platform, with room to influence major design choices.

You’ll collaborate with Product, Security, and Infrastructure, defining reliability, performance, and observability requirements, and leading system-wide changes in a fast‑growing AI‑powered environment.

Qualifications

• Deep expertise in Python backend development and a broad view of backend architecture.
• Strong product mindset with ability to relate trade-offs to user impact.
• Experience owning architecture and production operations of a product or large area.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, data flows, retries and idempotency.
• Knowledge of deploying backend apps in production, with CI/CD and IaC.
• Security basics: authentication, authorization, data isolation.
• Excellent English for technical discussions and documentation.
• Hands-on PHP experience is a plus, plus familiarity with AI-enabled workflows.

Responsibilities

• Set architecture and technical priorities for Brands, including service boundaries and data models.
• Decide which logic belongs in Python Brands services vs the PHP-based Manychat platform.
• Lead system-wide changes, plan data migrations, gradual rollouts, and rollbacks.
• Define reliability and performance requirements for key workflows, with metrics and observability.
• Identify root causes of slowdowns using metrics, logs, and tracing across services.
• Collaborate with Security, Infrastructure, and Platform teams to balance fixes and trade-offs.
• Work with Product on scope and approach, suggesting simpler options when possible.
• Document key choices and perform design and code reviews to share knowledge.

Skills

Python backend

Backend architecture

Product mindset

Architecture ownership

Distributed systems

Deployment in production

App security basics

English proficiency

PHP experience

ETL/DWH

CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code

AI in development

AWS

Kubernetes

Terraform/Terragrunt

PostgreSQL

Redis

Celery

FastAPI

Pydantic

SQLAlchemy

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

Terraform/Terragrunt

PostgreSQL

Redis

Celery

SQLAlchemy

Job description

WHO WE ARE

Creating content that resonates is great — turning that attention into growth is even better. That's what Manychat does.

Our AI-powered automations help creators and brands engage with audiences across Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and TikTok — at the right moment, with the right message, minus the manual work.

We're 400+ people across three continents behind the leading platform for conversational growth, with AI skills shaping how we build, how we work, and how we grow.

WHO WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Your decisions here won't get lost in a big system. They'll define it.

As Staff Backend Engineer for Manychat for Brands, you’ll own the technical side of a new product. You’ll set the architecture and technical priorities with the team, and decide what lives in our Python services and what stays in the PHP-based Manychat platform. It’s an individual contributor role with a lot of room to make an impact.

The product fills a real gap. Brands pay influencers to post but then can’t see what happens next. We’re building the first view that shows it: who asked for the link, who opened the DM, who clicked, for every campaign, creator and post.

You’ll work with Product as a partner and stay close to brands and creators, so feedback reaches you fast and helps you shape Manychat for Brands.

YOUR FUTURE TEAMMATES

Meet the Engineering team:

We keep Manychat running smoothly under high load every single day and make sure it's ready to scale even further. We do it by combining strong engineering foundations with AI tools that let us move faster without cutting corners. And we're the ones who shape and own what gets built. AI accelerates. Humans own the thinking.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Set the architecture and technical priorities for Brands together with the Engineering Manager and the team: service boundaries, data models, authentication, access control, and integration with the core Manychat platform.

• Decide which logic belongs in the Python-based Brands services and which stays in the PHP-based Manychat platform. Think about data ownership, reliability, and long-term maintenance.

• Lead big system-level changes when the path isn't clear yet. Explore options, split the work into measurable milestones, and plan data migrations, gradual rollouts, and rollbacks.

• Define reliability and performance requirements for key Brands workflows. Set metrics and observability, and check the impact of your changes on production data.

• Find the root causes of slowdowns and repeated incidents across service boundaries, using metrics, logs, and distributed tracing.

• Work with Security, Infrastructure, and Platform teams on solutions. Decide what to fix in the application and what needs other teams, and explain the trade‑offs clearly.

• Work with Product on the approach and scope of solutions, and suggest simpler options when you see them.

• Make technical decisions easy to follow: document key choices and the reasons behind them, do thorough design and code reviews, and share your knowledge in complex areas.

TO SHINE IN THIS ROLE

You'll need:

• Deep expertise in Python backend development and a broad view of backend architecture beyond one language. You can understand existing systems, even when the technology is new to you.

• A strong product mindset. You work closely with Product Managers, challenge assumptions, and explain technical trade‑offs in terms of user experience, timelines, and product capabilities.

• Experience owning the architecture and production operations of a product or a large technical area, not only delivering separate features.

• A solid understanding of distributed systems and data flows: API contracts, async processing, data consistency, retries, idempotency, and failure handling.

• Knowledge of how backend applications are deployed and run in production: configuration, networking, and external dependencies.

• Knowledge of application security basics: authentication, authorization, data isolation, and access management.

• Comfort in a fast‑changing environment. Things can shift quickly here, and the team relies on everyone's proactivity and ownership.

• Strong English for technical and product discussions and for documentation.

It would be great if you have:

• Hands‑on PHP experience, on top of understanding how our Python and PHP systems work together.

• Experience with ETL/DWH pipelines and analytics systems.

• Experience with environment configuration, CI/CD, and Infrastructure as Code.

• Experience improving AI‑assisted software development practices.

Our tech stack: Python, FastAPI, Pydantic, SQLAlchemy, PostgreSQL, Redis, and Celery. Our services integrate with Manychat's PHP-based platform. Everything runs on AWS and Kubernetes, with Terraform/Terragrunt for infrastructure. You don't need hands‑on experience with every tool. Technical depth and the ability to reason about complex systems matter most.

WHAT WE OFFER

We care deeply about your growth, well-being, and comfort:

• Hybrid onboarding to start work remotely and relocation support for you and your family.

• Comprehensive health insurance for both you and your family.

• Professional development budget for conference tickets, online courses, and other relevant resources to help you grow.

• Flexible benefits package: no one‑size‑fits‑all perks here. You get a budget and you decide where it goes, from health and wellbeing to family and setting up your home office.

• Hybrid work and generous, flexible time off — planned with your team, not rationed by a rigid quota.

• In-office perks, including free meals and snacks.

• Company‑funded sport activities, annual offsites and team‑building events.

• AI isn't a perk here — it's how we work. Claude, OpenAI, and more are on by default from day one, and we back teams in adopting whatever makes them faster.

Manychat is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We’re committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. We do not discriminate against qualified employees or applicants because of race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, sexual preference, sexual identity, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, marital status, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, military status, or any other characteristic protected by local law or ordinance.

This commitment is also reflected through our candidate experience. If you have individual needs that may require an accommodation during the interview process, please indicate this in your application. We will do our best to provide assistance throughout your interview process to ensure you’re set up for success.