Senior Backend Architect – Microservices Leader

Parts Town; Addison (IL); On-site; USD 133,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

401(k) with match

Paid time off

Parental leave

Professional development

Job summary

Parts Town, a fast-growing distributor of restaurant equipment, is seeking a Principal Backend Engineer in Addison, IL. You will design scalable microservices powering our eCommerce and enterprise platforms, champion API-first and event-driven architectures, and own backend policies, CI/CD, and testing automation.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with frontend, DevOps, and data teams, and ensure high availability with logging and observability.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in backend system design, eCommerce, and distributed applications.
• Strong written and verbal communication in English.
• Expertise in Node.js, TypeScript, and cloud-native platforms (Azure preferred).
• Knowledge of databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis), microservices, event-driven architectures (Kafka, NATS), and API standards (REST, GraphQL).
• Experience with unit, integration, and contract testing (Jest, Mocha, Pact) and CI/CD (Terraform, Pulumi).
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), serverless computing, Kubernetes, and containerization.
• Proven ability to mentor engineers and collaborate across teams.

Responsibilities

• Backend Architecture: Design scalable cloud-native microservices and ensure interoperability between platforms (eCommerce, CMS, ERP, PIM, marketing).
• Implementation & Best Practices: Use Node.js, TypeScript, Docker, Kubernetes, and serverless tech to build high-performance services; advocate modularization, API-first and event-driven architectures.
• Engineering Standards: Establish CI/CD practices, automated testing, and backend tooling standards; drive service-to-service communication (REST, GraphQL, gRPC).
• Operational Practices: Lead disaster recovery strategies, define observability and logging best practices, and drive automated testing strategies.
• Cross-functional Collaboration: Work with frontend, DevOps, and data teams to optimize APIs, caching, and databases; mentor engineers.

Skills

Strong communication

10+ years backend design

Node.js

TypeScript

Cloud-native platforms (Azure)

Databases (PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis)

Microservices & event-driven

API standards (REST, GraphQL)

Unit/integration/contract testing

CI/CD tooling (Terraform, Pulumi)

Mentoring engineers

Tools

Node.js

TypeScript

Docker

Kubernetes

Serverless

GraphQL

REST

Kafka

NATS

Terraform

Pulumi

AWS

Azure

Job description

Parts Town, a fast-growing distributor of restaurant equipment, is seeking a Principal Backend Engineer in Addison, IL. You will design scalable microservices powering our eCommerce and enterprise platforms, champion API-first and event-driven architectures, and own backend policies, CI/CD, and testing automation.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with frontend, DevOps, and data teams, and ensure high availability with logging and observability.