Staff Software Engineer

Wrike; Polska; Hybrid; PLN 180,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Wrike is seeking a Senior/Staff Backend Engineer to join the Backend Reliability team. You will design and implement core reliability features, improve performance under heavy load, and guide incidents toward lasting fixes, while collaborating with international teammates.

Ideal candidates bring strong Java/JVM experience, cloud-native tooling, and a passion for fault-tolerant systems. Hybrid work across Europe with flexible schedules supports deep, impact-focused work.

Qualifications

• Strong expertise with Java/JVM and scalable backend systems.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems, high availability, CAP theorem, and fault tolerance.
• Deep experience with PostgreSQL and Redis.
• Practical experience with containerization and cloud-native environments (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Hands-on experience with message brokers such as RabbitMQ or Kafka.
• Ability to work independently with critical thinking and English communications.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain reliability components (rate limiters, DB migrations, circuit breakers, Redis caching).
• Troubleshoot production issues, optimize PostgreSQL usage, ensure performance under load.
• Lead investigations during incidents and propose mitigations with long-term fixes by owning teams.
• Create scalable tools and frameworks to help other teams build resilient services.
• Leverage AI-powered tooling to accelerate development, analysis, and automation.
• Share knowledge, review designs, and promote reliability best practices.

Skills

Java/JVM

Distributed systems

PostgreSQL

Redis

Docker

Kubernetes

RabbitMQ

Kafka

English proficiency

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

RabbitMQ

Kafka

Job description

Wrike is the most powerful work management platform. Built for teams and organizations looking to collaborate, create, and exceed every day, Wrike brings everyone and all work into a single place to remove complexity, increase productivity, and free people up to focus on their most purposeful work.

Wrike is our people, not a place. As a distributed team, we own our growth, stay globally connected, and rely on the product we build to deliver impactful work alongside brilliant minds. You'll have real ownership over meaningful work, a global team that has your back, and the flexibility to do your best work your way. If that sounds like you, we'd love to hear from you.

Our vision: A world where everyone is free to focus on their most purposeful work, together.

About the Role:

You’ll help build the very AI-powered platform you use every day, with real autonomy over the features you ship. Wrike’s Backend Reliability (BRE) team is the backbone of our backend infrastructure and the guardian of our uptime. Our mission is to achieve and sustain 99.99% availability while building the tools, components, and safety nets that the entire engineering organization relies on. As a Senior / Staff Backend Engineer on this team, you won’t just close tickets - you’ll architect core reliability solutions that shape how Wrike scales, performs, and recovers from failure.

Your Impact:

• Design, build, and maintain critical reliability components such as HTTP rate limiters, internal DB schema migration tools, circuit breakers, and distributed Redis-based caching.
• Troubleshoot complex production issues, optimize PostgreSQL usage, and ensure our distributed systems remain performant and stable under high load.
• Lead preliminary investigations during severe production incidents: identify likely root causes, assess impact, and propose mitigation options. The long-term fixes are then implemented by the owning team, based on your findings.
• Create scalable, reusable tools and frameworks that help other engineering teams build more resilient services.
• Leverage AI-powered tools and coding agents to accelerate development, analyze architectures, and automate repetitive or error-prone tasks.
• Influence reliability best practices across engineering by sharing knowledge, reviewing designs, and setting high technical standards.

Your Qualifications:

• Strong expertise with Java/JVM, building scalable, high-performance backend systems; open to leveraging other languages when appropriate.
• Solid understanding of distributed systems concepts, including high availability, CAP theorem, and fault tolerance.
• Deep experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL) and key-value / non-relational storages (Redis).
• Practical experience with containerization and cloud-native environments, including Docker and Kubernetes.
• Hands-on experience with message brokers such as RabbitMQ or Kafka.
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision, using critical thinking to question assumptions and validate your own decisions.
• Strong written and spoken English skills suitable for collaborating in an international engineering environment.

Standout Qualities:

• Background in infrastructure engineering or Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), including infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Experience leading technical initiatives, driving cross-team projects, and mentoring other engineers while remaining an individual contributor.
• Familiarity with observability and monitoring stacks (e.g., Graylog, Zabbix, Grafana) and/or data analytics tools such as BigQuery.
• A strong interest in how complex systems fail and a track record of designing them to recover gracefully.

Team Dynamics:

You will join the Backend Reliability (BRE) team, a small, highly specialized, senior group focused solely on Wrike’s reliability. The team operates as an internal “reliability task force,” partnering closely with product and platform engineering teams across the company. You’ll collaborate with other senior engineers who value autonomy, deep technical discussions, and rigorous engineering practices. The culture is ownership-driven: you are trusted to manage your time, make architectural decisions, and drive initiatives to completion.

Our Work Style:

The BRE team works on core backend and infrastructure services that support millions of users. We operate in a collaborative environment that values clear communication, thoughtful design, and fast feedback loops.

• Tech focus areas include: Java/JVM-based services, PostgreSQL, Redis, Docker, Kubernetes, RabbitMQ/Kafka, and observability/monitoring tools.
• We encourage the use of modern AI-based tooling and coding agents as part of daily development and troubleshooting workflows.
• Work is organized with an emphasis on impact and reliability goals rather than ticket volume, giving you room for deep work and long-term improvements.
• Hybrid work mode (Prague, Czech Republic / Nicosia, Cyprus), …