Senior Backend Developer (TypeScript/Node.js)

Utorg; United States; Remote; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote work

Two career tracks: Tech Lead or IC

Competitive salary

Job summary

Utorg is hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to own two large-scale microservice platforms and lead complex integrations with payment providers and blockchain networks. You will drive performance, data flow design, and architectural decisions while supporting AI-powered workflows and back-office dashboards.

You will work remotely in an international fintech environment, contributing to scalable systems that handle real user funds across multiple networks.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of production backend development with TypeScript/Node.js
• 2+ years with NestJS in production
• Blockchain experience with on-chain transactions and multiple networks
• Experience using AI tools (Claude, Copilot, Cursor) in daily workflow
• Deep PostgreSQL expertise: indexing, migrations, zero-downtime patterns
• Hands-on microservices with RPC/pub-sub, idempotency, eventual consistency
• System design experience: decomposing services, API contracts, data flow
• Complex integrations with payment systems or external APIs
• Performance engineering including caching and query optimization
• Strong testing discipline: unit and integration tests with real databases
• Security-conscious approach in fintech/crypto environments
• English Upper-Intermediate; Fluent in Russian

Responsibilities

• Own backend architecture across large-scale microservices platforms
• Lead complex integrations with payment providers and blockchain networks
• Drive performance, caching, and database optimization
• Shape technical direction and standards; partially offload the Tech Lead
• Build AI-powered automation and internal tooling enhancements
• Contribute to back-office UIs with React-based dashboards
• Own features end-to-end from planning to production monitoring
• Collaborate with Product, QA, and cross-functional teams; document and review code
• Participate in on-call rotation roughly one week per month

Skills

Backend architecting

TypeScript/Node.js

NestJS

PostgreSQL

Distributed systems

Blockchain integrations

AI tooling in dev

Testing (Jest)

Security mindset

Tools

NestJS

PostgreSQL

TypeORM

Redis

Docker

Kubernetes

GCP

Job description

About Utorg

Founded in 2019, Utorg builds the infrastructure for stablecoin payments: on- and off-ramps, self-custodial wallets, and crypto cards. Over 2 million users across 130+ countries already buy, hold, and spend crypto through our app. On the B2B side, the same rails power 2,100+ platforms, with $2.4B+ moved to date.

Fully MiCA-authorized across the EEA. PCI DSS Level 2 certified. Backed by Dragonfly, TA Ventures, and Hypra.

Location: Remote

Tech stack: TypeScript, Node.js, NestJS, PostgreSQL, TypeORM, NATS JetStream, Redis, Jest, Docker, Kubernetes, Google Cloud Platform.

Blockchains: EVM-compatible, Bitcoin-family, Tron, Solana, TON.

About the role:

We're looking for a Senior Backend Engineer who thinks in systems and owns the outcome: two large-scale microservice platforms (30+ and 25+ services), blockchain integrations handling real user funds across multiple networks, a fintech product available in 190+ countries.

This role partially offloads the Tech Lead. That means making architectural calls independently, driving complex integrations with payment providers and blockchain networks, and shaping technical direction, not just contributing to it.

The bar is high by design. If you've been in rooms where key technical decisions get made, and you were the one making them or should have been, let's talk.

What you’ll do:

• Own backend architecture across two large-scale microservice platforms (30+ and 25+ services) from system design and API contracts to data flow and inter-service communication.
• Lead complex integrations - payment providers, card issuers, blockchain networks, third-party APIs, and take full responsibility for their reliability in production.
• Drive performance and scalability - identify bottlenecks, design caching strategies, optimize database queries, and ensure the platform handles growing load.
• Shape technical direction - make architectural decisions, evaluate trade-offs, and influence the team’s engineering standards. You’ll partially offload the Tech Lead so the team can scale.
• Build and improve AI-powered processes - our team actively uses LLM-based systems to automate operational and development workflows. You’ll contribute to and extend this direction.
• Contribute to back-office frontends (~20% of your time) - maintain and extend React-based admin dashboards used by internal teams.
• Own features end-to-end from planning and architectural design to implementation, testing, production monitoring, and iterative improvement.
• Collaborate closely with Product, QA, and cross-functional teams - produce clear technical documentation, participate in code reviews, and share knowledge.
• Take part in a shared on-call rotation - roughly one week a month.

Who you are:

• Technically strong with an architectural mindset - you don’t just write code; you design systems. You think about data flows, failure modes, and long-term maintainability before writing the first line.
• Opinionated and able to defend your decisions - you bring an expert perspective to technical discussions and can articulate trade-offs clearly to both engineers and stakeholders.
• Proactive problem-solver - you find issues before they become incidents and propose solutions without waiting to be asked.
• Product-driven - most of your time goes into shipping features and solving real user problems, not open-ended refactoring.
• Self-motivated and responsible - you thrive in small teams, enjoy autonomy, and take full ownership of the development process.

What you will bring (must-have):

• Last 5+ years of production experience in backend development with Type Script/Node.js as the primary stack.
• Last 2+ years with NestJS in production - modules, providers, middleware, guards, interceptors, microservice architecture with custom transports.
• Production blockchain experience - you’ve worked with on-chain transactions, multiple networks, and real user funds. You understand HD wallets (BIP32/BIP39), smart contracts, ABI, ERC-20/SPL tokens, and the differences between account-based and UTXO models. Experience with libraries like ethers.js, viem, and solana/web3.js.
• AI-driven development - you actively use AI tools (Claude, Copilot, Cursor) in your daily workflow. Beyond personal productivity, you have experience optimizing business or organizational processes with AI/LLMs building automations, internal tools, or workflows powered by language models.
• Deep PostgreSQL expertise - schema design, indexing (partial, GIN/GiST), query optimization, migrations with zero downtime, database-per-service pattern.
• Hands-on microservices experience - not a monolith split into modules. You’ve dealt with inter-service communication (RPC + pub/sub), message brokers, idempotency, eventual consistency, saga/outbox patterns.
• System design experience - decomposing services, designing API contracts, data flow architecture, capacity planning. You can whiteboard a system and explain why you made each decision.
• Complex integration experience - you’ve built and maintained integrations with third-party APIs, payment systems, or similar external services in production. You know how to handle retries, circuit breakers, and graceful degradation.
• Performance engineering - profiling, caching strategies, load analysis, bottleneck identification. You can optimize a slow query and a slow service alike.
• Strong testing discipline - unit tests (Jest), integration tests with real databases, microservice testing.
• Security-conscious - in fintech and crypto, every code path can touch real user funds. You build accordingly.
• Skilled in technical research - evaluating trade-offs, testing hypotheses, and making data-driven architectural decisions.
• English proficiency at Upper-Intermediate. Fluent in Russian.

Nice to have:

• Experience with NATS JetStream as a transport layer (streams, consumers, delivery policies).
• Observability: OpenTelemetry, Prometheus + Grafana, structured logging (pino), distributed tracing.
• Kubernetes beyond basics: Kustomize/Helm, deployment strategies, resource management.
• Fintech domain knowledge: PCI DSS, GDPR, KYC/AML, payment systems.
• Experience mentoring junior/middle developers.
• React basics for back-office UIs (functional components, hooks, Redux, Material-UI).

Close collaboration with Product, QA, Frontend, and Mobile. Cross-functional communication is an essential part of the role. Partially offload the Tech Lead: own architectural and technical decisions, independently drive complex integrations, and influence the platform's technical direction. This is not an executor role. We need someone with strong expert opinions who can be relied upon for key technical decisions.

Key results (30-60-90):

30 days: First features shipped to production. Deep dive into the stack, architecture, and domain (blockchain, fintech). Clear understanding of core services and how they interact.

60 days: Independently drives a complex integration or a major feature. Participates in architectural code reviews. Brings first proposals for improvements.

90 days: Makes architectural decisions on their scope. Influences technical direction. Partially offloads decision-making from the Tech Lead. Participates in planning.

What we offer:

• Work fully remote as part of an agile, international team reshaping the future of finance.
• An engineering culture that encourages the adoption of modern tools and development practices, giving engineers real influence over technologies, workflows, and technical decisions.
• Two career tracks - grow into Tech Lead or deepen your expertise as Staff/Principal IC. You choose the path.
• Career progression and professional development in a forward-thinking fintech environment.
• Competitive salary range based on individual performance review.
• Transparent feedback and a culture that values ownership, open dialogue, and visible impact.