Backend API Developer

Sequester; United States; Remote; USD 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-friendly

Job summary

Sequester is seeking a backend engineer to build a privacy-first encrypted vault for personal photos and videos. You will implement authentication, upload orchestration, billing hooks, and account lifecycle flows within a PHP/CodeIgniter stack.

Design REST endpoints, enforce security and input validation, and integrate payment, email, and storage providers. You will contribute structured logs and metrics to support and SRE teams.

Qualifications

• Experience building APIs used by real consumers.
• Strong SQL skills with transactional integrity.
• Security habits: parameterized queries, secrets hygiene, least-privilege DB users.
• Comfort with PHP or willingness to ramp up in a CodeIgniter codebase.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship REST endpoints and internal RPC services for consumer-facing functionality.
• Enforce authentication, rate limits, and input validation on every public route.
• Integrate payment, email, and storage providers with idempotent, retry-safe patterns.
• Write schema migrations and one-off data fixes that stay backward compatible.
• Emit structured logs and metrics to aid Support and SRE debugging.

Skills

API design

SQL & transactions

Security best practices

PHP / CodeIgniter

Job description

Role overview

You will build the backend APIs that power a privacy-first encrypted vault for personal photos and videos, covering authentication, upload orchestration, billing hooks, and account lifecycle flows. The work emphasizes strict authorization, idempotent integrations, and audit-friendly logging. Expect to work inside an existing PHP and CodeIgniter codebase while shaping new services alongside it.

Responsibilities

• Design and ship REST endpoints and internal RPC services for consumer-facing functionality


• Enforce authentication, rate limits, and input validation on every public route


• Integrate payment, email, and storage providers using idempotent, retry-safe patterns


• Write schema migrations and one-off data fixes that remain backward compatible


• Emit structured logs and metrics that help support and SRE debug issues quickly

Requirements

• Backend development experience building APIs that real consumers use


• Strong SQL skills and a working understanding of transactional integrity


• Security habits including parameterized queries, secrets hygiene, and least-privilege database users


• Comfort working in PHP, or the willingness to ramp up quickly inside a CodeIgniter codebase

Benefits and work setup

• Remote-friendly with global hiring and async-first collaboration across time zones