Senior Backend Architect: Scalable Systems & AI Tools

HackerRank; Santa Clara, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 172,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Stock options

Comprehensive benefits

Job summary

HackerRank is seeking a Senior Backend Software Development Engineer to drive technical direction and own core backend services for a global user base. You will mentor engineers, define system design strategies, and ensure fast, reliable platforms.

Proficiency with AI-enabled development tools and distributed architectures is highly valued. You will contribute to scalable API design, data modeling, and cross-team initiatives while guiding refactoring of legacy systems toward modern, maintainable

Qualifications

• Senior backend engineer with 3-6 years of production backend experience.
• Expert in at least one modern language (Python, Ruby, Go, Java, or Node.js).
• Proven distributed systems design with service decomposition and observability.
• Relational and NoSQL data modeling for high throughput.
• Caching, asynchronous messaging, and event-driven architectures.
• Containerization, CI/CD, and infrastructure-as-code practices.
• Leadership in technical projects from ambiguity to production.

Responsibilities

• Architect and lead complex backend systems powering core product experiences at scale.
• Define technical strategy and long-term architectural direction.
• Ensure reliability and performance with SLOs, monitoring, and incident response.
• Design scalable API frameworks and data models for multi-team use.
• Lead cross-functional initiatives across teams with stakeholders.
• Tackle tech debt and evolve legacy systems to modern architectures.
• Mentor engineers through reviews and hands-on guidance.
• Contribute to engineering standards, tooling, and processes.

Skills

Backend development

Distributed systems

Architectural design

Mentorship

AI fluency

PostgreSQL

MySQL

Caching (Redis)

Messaging (Kafka)

Observability

Python

Go

Java

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD

IaC

Tools

GitHub Copilot

Cloud platforms

Redis

Kafka

Job description

HackerRank is seeking a Senior Backend Software Development Engineer to drive technical direction and own core backend services for a global user base. You will mentor engineers, define system design strategies, and ensure fast, reliable platforms.

Proficiency with AI-enabled development tools and distributed architectures is highly valued. You will contribute to scalable API design, data modeling, and cross-team initiatives while guiding refactoring of legacy systems toward modern, maintainable