BACKEND ENGINEER

Svitla Systems, Inc.; Northern (KY); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote or office flexibility

Bonuses for talks and articles

Tech webinars and meetups

Job summary

Svitla Systems Inc. is seeking a Backend Engineer for a full-time role in the USA to design, build, and operate high-performance backend services. You will leverage Go/Rust, work with Kafka/Kinesis, and deploy on Kubernetes across AWS, GCP, and Azure.

The role emphasizes production reliability, observability, and scalable data systems. You will collaborate with architects and product teams, implement real-time processing, REST/gRPC APIs, and maintain data storage with time-series databases,

Qualifications

• 10+ years of backend software engineering experience, with a strong track record of shipping production services at scale.
• Proven hands-on proficiency in Go and/or Rust, with experience building production systems using these languages.
• Solid experience building and operating distributed data systems, including event streaming (Kafka, Kinesis, or equivalent), time-series databases, and high-throughput ingestion pipelines.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, including consistency models, failure modes, backpressure, idempotency, and the trade-offs between exactly-once and at-least-once processing.
• Experience with cloud-native deployment, including containerization with Docker, Kubernetes orchestration, and operating services on at least one major cloud platform (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Familiarity with observability tooling, including structured logging, metrics (Prometheus/Grafana or equivalent), and distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry or equivalent).
• Comfortable writing SQL and working with both relational and time-series data models, with experience in schema design and query optimization.
• Strong engineering practices, including test-driven or test-informed development, code review, CI/CD, and operational ownership, including participation in on-call rotations.

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and operate production backend services in Go and/or Rust, writing clean, performant, and well-tested code as a primary daily responsibility.
• Build and maintain high-throughput data ingestion pipelines that collect telemetry from large device fleets using protocols including gNMI, NETCONF, SNMP, and custom streaming transports.
• Implement real-time processing engines, including aggregators, normalizers, and anomaly detectors, that transform raw device telemetry into actionable platform signals.
• Develop and maintain RESTful and gRPC API services that expose platform data to internal consumers, dashboards, and external integrations.
• Implement and evolve the platform’s time-series storage layer using databases such as InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, or equivalent, with a focus on query performance, retention, and data fidelity.
• Build event-streaming consumers and producers using Kafka, Kinesis, or equivalent, ensuring reliable at-least-once or exactly-once processing semantics as required.
• Implement data partitioning, sharding, and archival strategies that support high event volumes while meeting latency and durability SLAs.
• Work with graph data models for network topology representation, supporting device relationship queries and topology-aware alerting.
• Own the reliability of the services you build by participating in on-call rotations, responding to incidents, writing post-mortems, and driving systemic fixes.
• Instrument services with meaningful observability, including structured logging, distributed tracing, and metrics that enable fast diagnosis of production issues.
• Contribute to and follow platform-wide engineering standards for testing (unit, integration, and load), CI/CD pipelines, and deployment practices.
• Participate in capacity planning, performance profiling, and optimization of backend services under production load.
• Package and deploy backend services as containerized workloads on Kubernetes, following platform patterns for resource management, autoscaling, and service mesh integration.
• Write and maintain infrastructure as code for service deployments, configuration management, and environment parity across cloud providers (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Contribute to multi-cloud and multi-region deployment patterns that ensure platform availability and meet data residency requirements.
• Collaborate with the Principal Architect and product team to translate monitoring requirements into backend implementation plans and engineering specifications.
• Participate actively in architecture and design reviews, providing implementation-level feedback and raising concerns grounded in production experience.
• Conduct and participate in thorough code reviews, maintaining a high bar for correctness, performance, and maintainability.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers through pairing, code reviews, and technical guidance.

Skills

Go

Rust

Python

Tools

Kafka

Kinesis

PostgreSQL

InfluxDB

TimescaleDB

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Istio

Linkerd

OpenTelemetry

Prometheus

Grafana

GitHub Actions

Job description

Svitla Systems Inc. is looking for a Backend Engineer for a full-time position (40 hours per week) in the USA. Our client is a global leader in quantum computing, networking, sensing, and security, delivering integrated quantum solutions through its advanced quantum platform and foundry. Its newest generation of quantum computers builds on a line of cutting-edge systems that have helped customers and partners, including Amazon Web Services, AstraZeneca, and NVIDIA, achieve 20x performance improvements and accelerate innovation across drug discovery, materials science, financial modeling, logistics, cybersecurity, and defense. In 2025, the company achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, setting a world record for quantum computing performance.

The Backend Engineer will design, build, and operate high-performance backend services and distributed data systems at scale. The role focuses on Go and/or Rust development, high-throughput telemetry ingestion and real-time processing, distributed systems, cloud-native infrastructure, observability, and production reliability. The engineer will work closely with the Principal Architect and product team to translate monitoring requirements into robust backend solutions and will contribute to architecture, technical design, performance optimization, and engineering standards across the platform.

Technical Environment:

• Languages: Go (primary), Rust (for performance-critical components), Python (scripting and tooling).
• Data & Streaming: Kafka or Kinesis, InfluxDB or TimescaleDB, PostgreSQL, and graph stores for topology.
• Telemetry Protocols: gNMI, NETCONF, SNMP, and custom streaming collectors.
• Infrastructure: Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, and service mesh (Istio or Linkerd).
• Cloud: Multi-cloud environments across AWS, GCP, and Azure; platform-neutral design is a first-class requirement.
• Observability: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, and structured logging.
• CI/CD: GitHub Actions or equivalent, with automated testing gates for all services.

Requirements

• 10+ years of backend software engineering experience, with a strong track record of shipping production services at scale.
• Proven hands-on proficiency in Go and/or Rust, with experience building production systems using these languages.
• Solid experience building and operating distributed data systems, including event streaming (Kafka, Kinesis, or equivalent), time-series databases, and high-throughput ingestion pipelines.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, including consistency models, failure modes, backpressure, idempotency, and the trade-offs between exactly-once and at-least-once processing.
• Experience with cloud-native deployment, including containerization with Docker, Kubernetes orchestration, and operating services on at least one major cloud platform (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Familiarity with observability tooling, including structured logging, metrics (Prometheus/Grafana or equivalent), and distributed tracing (OpenTelemetry or equivalent).
• Comfortable writing SQL and working with both relational and time-series data models, with experience in schema design and query optimization.
• Strong engineering practices, including test-driven or test-informed development, code review, CI/CD, and operational ownership, including participation in on-call rotations.

Will be a plus

• Experience with network telemetry protocols (gNMI, NETCONF, SNMP) or prior experience working at a network equipment vendor or network management platform company (e.g., Juniper, Cisco, or Nokia).
• Hands-on experience with graph databases or graph data models for network topology (e.g., Neo4j, Amazon Neptune, or custom adjacency representations).
• Familiarity with YANG data modeling or experience working with device configuration schemas in network management contexts.
• Experience building multi-tenant SaaS backend services with strong data isolation and per-tenant resource management.
• Contributions to open-source infrastructure, observability, or networking projects, or published technical writing on distributed systems topics.
• Experience working in or adjacent to regulated, security-conscious environments (e.g., FedRAMP, NIST, or equivalent).

Responsibilities

• Design, implement, test, and operate production backend services in Go and/or Rust, writing clean, performant, and well-tested code as a primary daily responsibility.
• Build and maintain high-throughput data ingestion pipelines that collect telemetry from large device fleets using protocols including gNMI, NETCONF, SNMP, and custom streaming transports.
• Implement real-time processing engines, including aggregators, normalizers, and anomaly detectors, that transform raw device telemetry into actionable platform signals.
• Develop and maintain RESTful and gRPC API services that expose platform data to internal consumers, dashboards, and external integrations.
• Implement and evolve the platform’s time-series storage layer using databases such as InfluxDB, TimescaleDB, or equivalent, with a focus on query performance, retention, and data fidelity.
• Build event-streaming consumers and producers using Kafka, Kinesis, or equivalent, ensuring reliable at-least-once or exactly-once processing semantics as required.
• Implement data partitioning, sharding, and archival strategies that support high event volumes while meeting latency and durability SLAs.
• Work with graph data models for network topology representation, supporting device relationship queries and topology-aware alerting.
• Own the reliability of the services you build by participating in on-call rotations, responding to incidents, writing post-mortems, and driving systemic fixes.
• Instrument services with meaningful observability, including structured logging, distributed tracing, and metrics that enable fast diagnosis of production issues.
• Contribute to and follow platform-wide engineering standards for testing (unit, integration, and load), CI/CD pipelines, and deployment practices.
• Participate in capacity planning, performance profiling, and optimization of backend services under production load.
• Package and deploy backend services as containerized workloads on Kubernetes, following platform patterns for resource management, autoscaling, and service mesh integration.
• Write and maintain infrastructure as code for service deployments, configuration management, and environment parity across cloud providers (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Contribute to multi-cloud and multi-region deployment patterns that ensure platform availability and meet data residency requirements.
• Collaborate with the Principal Architect and product team to translate monitoring requirements into backend implementation plans and engineering specifications.
• Participate actively in architecture and design reviews, providing implementation-level feedback and raising concerns grounded in production experience.
• Conduct and participate in thorough code reviews, maintaining a high bar for correctness, performance, and maintainability.
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers through pairing, code reviews, and technical guidance.

We offer

• US and EU projects based on advanced technologies.
• Competitive compensation based on skills and experience.
• Flexibility in workspace, either remote or our welcoming office.
• Bonuses for article writing, public talks, and other activities.
• Free tech webinars and meetups organized by Svitla.
• Regular corporate online activities.
• Awesome team, friendly and supportive community!

Why join Svitla

Svitla Systems is a global digital solutions company headquartered in the U.S. and operating across the Americas, Europe, Asia, and APAC. Since 2003, we have served a wide range of clients - from innovative start-ups to Fortune 500 companies. Our success is built on partnership. By integrating seamlessly with clients' teams, we create lasting collaborations that drive real results. We are strong advocates of workplace flexibility, remote culture, individual approach to professional and personal growth.

Our global mission is to build a business that contributes to wellbeing of our partners, personnel, and their families, improves our communities, and makes a lasting difference in the world. Together, we are coding a brighter tomorrow - and living it.