Principal Back End Engineer

MMD Services; Oakland (CA); Remote; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Principal Back End Engineer to lead the design and architecture of scalable backend systems. This role offers the opportunity to work fully remotely, with occasional team meetups. You will be at the forefront of driving backend optimization, ensuring seamless integration across platforms, and implementing best practices for microservices architecture. With a focus on continuous innovation, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams and mentor engineers, making a significant impact on the company's technological landscape. If you have a passion for backend engineering and a wealth of experience, this is the perfect opportunity for you.

Benefits

Fully remote schedule

401K

Profit sharing

Quarterly office visits

Health benefits

Flexible working hours

Qualifications

• 15+ years of experience in backend systems and eCommerce.
• Expert in Node.js, TypeScript, and cloud platforms like Azure.
• Strong knowledge of microservices and CI/CD best practices.

Responsibilities

• Design and manage cloud-native microservices for scalability.
• Implement CI/CD best practices and drive backend optimization.
• Mentor backend engineers and foster a culture of innovation.

Skills

Node.js

TypeScript

Python

Go

REST

GraphQL

CI/CD

Microservices Architecture

Event-driven Design

Performance Optimization

Tools

Terraform

Kubernetes

OpenTelemetry

Prometheus

Grafana

Jest

Mocha

Cypress

Postman

Mirakl

Job description

Our client is a seasoned logistics/distribution company, named one of the fastest growing companies in the Chicagoland area. They are known in the industry for their impeccable customer service and friendly demeanor. In addition to traditional health benefits (including 401K and profit sharing), they offer a fully remote schedule with a quarterly office visit to meet your close-knit team of tech enthusiasts!

Position: Principal Back End Engineer

As the Principal Back End Engineer, you will play a crucial role in shaping the architecture and execution of backend systems, ensuring their scalability, resilience, and operational efficiency. Your responsibilities include designing and managing cloud-native microservices, driving backend optimization, and ensuring seamless integration across platforms and services. You will lead efforts to optimize backend performance, refine operational practices, and align with industry best practices, fostering continuous innovation and performance improvements.

Responsibilities:

1. Oversee the backend architectural artifacts.
2. Define and maintain the architecture for scalable, resilient, cloud-native microservices across technologies such as Java, NodeJS, etc.
3. Ensure seamless interoperability between platforms and services, including commerce, CMS, ERP, PIM, and marketing systems.
4. Establish best practices for modularization, API design, and service-to-service communication.
5. Develop and maintain backend engineering policies, procedures, and standards.
6. Implement CI/CD best practices, incorporating automated testing, linting, and deployment strategies for microservices.
7. Drive the adoption of API-first, event-driven architectures, and domain-driven design.
8. Define and enforce standards for backend tools, including frameworks, ORMs, performance profiling, and logging.
9. Lead platform and backend operational practices, ensuring effective disaster recovery and high-availability strategies for microservices.
10. Define logging, tracing, and observability practices, utilizing tools such as OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, and Grafana.
11. Promote automated testing strategies (unit, integration, contract, and end-to-end testing).
12. Set up metrics and dashboards to track backend performance (SLAs, SLOs, SLIs, Golden Signals).
13. Collaborate cross-functionally with frontend, Cloud & SRE, and data teams to optimize APIs, databases, and caching strategies.
14. Mentor backend engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation.

Experience:

1. A minimum of 15+ years of industry experience.
2. Extensive experience in building and scaling backend systems for eCommerce and large-scale distributed applications, with exposure to headless commerce, marketplaces (Mirakl), and API-driven commerce solutions.
3. Expert knowledge of backend technologies (Node.js, TypeScript, Python, Go) and modern frameworks (NestJS, Fastify, Express, Hapi.js).
4. Strong experience with databases and caching solutions (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, DynamoDB, ElasticSearch).
5. Deep understanding of microservices architecture, including event-driven design, API gateways, service mesh (Istio, Linkerd), and inter-service communication patterns.
6. Advocate for high-quality engineering practices, with hands-on experience in testing tools (Jest, Mocha, Chai, Cypress, Pact, Postman).
7. Proficiency in cloud platforms (Azure preferred, AWS, Google Cloud) and cloud-native methodologies (serverless computing, Kubernetes, containerization).
8. Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code (Terraform, Pulumi), and deployment automation.
9. Expertise in REST, GraphQL, and event-driven architectures using Kafka, NATS, RabbitMQ, and AWS EventBridge.
10. Expertise in observability and APM tools (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, New Relic, Dynatrace).
11. Strong knowledge of authentication and authorization practices (OAuth2, OpenID Connect, JWT, API key management, Zero Trust security models).
12. Experience in performance optimization for backend services, database queries, caching strategies, and load balancing.
13. Knowledge of diagramming and collaboration tools (Miro, Diagrams.net, FigJam, Mermaid.js).
14. Strong communication and leadership skills, with the ability to mentor engineers and collaborate across teams.

MMD Services Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants are considered for all positions without regard to race, religion, color, sex, gender, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age, national origin, ancestry, physical/mental disability, medical condition, military/veteran status, genetic information, marital status, ethnicity, alienage, or any other protected classification, in accordance with applicable federal, state, and local laws.