Hybrid Staff Backend Engineer - Lead Scalable Node.js & AWS

DAT Freight & Analytics; Denver (CO); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

DAT Freight & Analytics is hiring a Staff Backend Software Engineer to lead design, development, and delivery of core backend services. You will champion best practices, architectural direction, and high‑throughput systems on AWS, including EKS, MSK, and DocumentDB.

You will mentor engineers and address complex production incidents while collaborating with product and DevOps teams. You will work in a hybrid environment, shaping scalable, reliable services for a leading transportation data

Qualifications

• 10+ years of backend software development experience, including senior/staff engineer ownership of complex, high‑throughput services.
• Deep Node.js/TypeScript expertise, building and operating Express HTTP APIs at scale.
• Proven experience owning Tier‑1, customer‑facing transaction systems with strict availability and latency expectations.
• Extensive AWS experience with production backends (EKS/Kubernetes, Lambda, MSK/Kafka, DocumentDB/MongoDB, S3, CloudWatch).
• Strong background in event‑driven and distributed systems using Kafka/MSK.
• Expertise with document databases (DocumentDB/MongoDB).
• Hands‑on migrations with zero/low downtime.
• Strong API contracts and microservice architecture understanding.
• Observability, dashboards, SLOs, on‑call health, and incident reduction focus.
• Leadership in setting engineering standards, PR/testing guidelines, and post‑incident reviews.
• Proven mentoring in system design, observability, and operational excellence.
• Excellent communication to explain trade‑offs to engineers, PMs, and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and implementation of large‑scale backend systems and microservices using Node.js/TypeScript.
• Drive automated testing, code reviews, CI/CD, and infrastructure‑as‑code practices.
• Architect and maintain scalable AWS services (EKS, MSK, S3, Secrets Manager).
• Mentor backend engineers and raise team capabilities.
• Lead incident management, root cause analysis, and preventative measures.
• Collaborate with product, DevOps, and frontend teams on end‑to‑end solutions.

Skills

Node.js/TypeScript

AWS

Kafka/MSK

MongoDB/DocumentDB

Terraform

Observability/Monitoring

API design/microservices

Mentorship/leadership

Communication

Tools

Express/HTTP APIs

Kubernetes (EKS)

S3/CloudWatch

Terraform

Secrets Manager

CI/CD

Docker

Job description

DAT Freight & Analytics is hiring a Staff Backend Software Engineer to lead design, development, and delivery of core backend services. You will champion best practices, architectural direction, and high‑throughput systems on AWS, including EKS, MSK, and DocumentDB.

You will mentor engineers and address complex production incidents while collaborating with product and DevOps teams. You will work in a hybrid environment, shaping scalable, reliable services for a leading transportation data