Senior Backend Architect — AI-First, Scale APIs & Data

Collectors Universe, Inc.; California; On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Collectors Universe, Inc. is seeking a senior backend engineer to own the API and data domain end to end, working across Java and Python services, AWS, Kubernetes, and both relational and NoSQL stores to serve internal and external customers.

You will lead architecture for scalable, autonomous development, define API standards, and pilot new API initiatives while ensuring reliability and security across cross-functional teams.

Qualifications

• 8+ years engineering experience with leadership of multi-engineer projects.
• Expert-level backend engineering in Java and Python with API surfaces and distributed systems.
• Strong API design knowledge: REST, and possibly GraphQL or gRPC, with versioning and auth.
• Deep database and data-modeling experience: PostgreSQL and NoSQL.
• Experience with data, pipelines, and API gateways (Kong) in production.
• Familiar with AWS, Kubernetes, and infrastructure-as-code (CDK/ Terraform).
• Strong observability and incident-response practices (Datadog).
• AI-first tooling experience and maturity in security/verification of AI-generated code.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture of the API and data domain end to end across services.
• Architect for scalable, autonomous development with clear data ownership and clean boundaries.
• Define API standards: design, versioning, authentication, rate limiting, docs for internal/external use.
• Pilot API initiatives and consolidate gateways with consistent rate limiting and bot protection.
• Design data models and pipelines for fast, accurate collectibles data access across lines.
• Unify spec databases across PSA, Beckett, SGC and expose results via a spec API.
• Set reliability standards: testing strategy, observability, performance, incident response.
• Lead multi-quarter delivery and coordinate engineers and stakeholders.

Skills

Java

Python

API design

Distributed systems

AWS

Kubernetes

PostgreSQL

DynamoDB

REST APIs

GraphQL

Tools

Kong

Datadog

React

CDK

Terraform

Brighthire

Job description

Collectors Universe, Inc. is seeking a senior backend engineer to own the API and data domain end to end, working across Java and Python services, AWS, Kubernetes, and both relational and NoSQL stores to serve internal and external customers.

You will lead architecture for scalable, autonomous development, define API standards, and pilot new API initiatives while ensuring reliability and security across cross-functional teams.