Lead Backend Integrations & API Gateway Architect

elementfleet; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 133,000 - 182,000; Full time

Job summary

Element is seeking a Senior Backend Integration Engineer to design, build, and maintain the API gateway and integration layer that connects Element Pay services with external systems. You will own authentication, authorization, and the trust framework across services, while guiding architecture and engineering practices for reliable enterprise integration.

You will lead schema design, service contracts, and event-driven patterns, mentoring engineers and helping to deliver scalable, observable

Qualifications

• 6+ years of backend engineering, with distributed systems or platform experience.
• Strong proficiency in TypeScript/Node.js and/or Go, with depth in at least one.
• Production experience with GraphQL and/or gRPC, including schema/service-contract design.

Responsibilities

• Architect and build the API gateway for Element Pay, including routing and rate limiting.
• Design and maintain integration layer interfaces, GraphQL schemas, and service contracts.
• Own authentication/authorization, token handling, SSO integrations, and identity propagation.
• Implement caching and outbound notifications to optimize performance and reliability.
• Develop tests, metrics, traces, logs, and alerts to ensure production stability.
• Provide technical guidance through design/code reviews and mentoring.
• Resolve complex production and integration problems with reusable patterns.

Skills

TypeScript/Node.js

Go

GraphQL

gRPC

API gateway design

OAuth2/OIDC/JWTs

Asynchronous messaging

Education

College/University degree

Tools

Envoy

Kong

Traefik

Kubernetes Gateway API

Protocol Buffers

OpenTelemetry

Datadog

Prometheus

Grafana

Job description

Element is seeking a Senior Backend Integration Engineer to design, build, and maintain the API gateway and integration layer that connects Element Pay services with external systems. You will own authentication, authorization, and the trust framework across services, while guiding architecture and engineering practices for reliable enterprise integration.

You will lead schema design, service contracts, and event-driven patterns, mentoring engineers and helping to deliver scalable, observable