Senior Backend Engineer

vogo - simple, custom voting; Dallas (TX); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary + equity

Top-tier laptop provided

100% company-paid health benefits for

401(k) with company match

Unlimited vacation days

Annual wellness stipend

Monthly house cleaning stipend

Annual travel allowance

Monthly cell phone & internet stipend

Charity donation company match

Employee referral bonus

Team offsites/activities

Job summary

Vogo is seeking a versatile Senior Backend Engineer to join our engineering organization. You will own backend initiatives, design robust APIs and services using Node.js, PostgreSQL, and Redis, and help scale our platform to support millions of users and high-volume transactions.

Reporting to the Head of Engineering in a hybrid Dallas-based role, you will collaborate with product, engineering, and leadership, mentor teammates, tackle debt, and drive releases from concept to production while

Qualifications

• 8+ years of backend software engineering experience.
• Strong experience with Node.js and PostgreSQL (or equivalent relational databases).
• Strong SQL skills and ability to optimize complex queries on large datasets.
• Demonstrated AI fluency and day-to-day use of AI tools.
• Experience with high-volume consumer-facing platforms.
• Solid understanding of backend architecture, distributed systems, and scalability.
• Experience with DevOps practices and cloud infrastructure (GCP/AWS), including CI/CD, monitoring, and IaC.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Design, architect, and implement robust APIs and services using Node.js, PostgreSQL, and Redis.
• Optimize complex SQL queries and schemas for high performance on large datasets.
• Leverage AI coding tools as part of development workflow and integrate AI/LLM features.
• Tackle high-scale engineering challenges to ensure reliability under heavy traffic.
• Collaborate with product, engineering, and leadership on backend features.
• Proactively identify and resolve technical debt; lead refactoring projects.
• Participate in standups, code reviews, and deployment processes.
• Mentor and support engineers, elevating team-wide technical excellence.
• Take ownership of projects from concept to production and drive releases.

Skills

Ownership mindset

Collaboration

Mentor others

Technical leadership

Tools

Node.js

PostgreSQL

Redis

SQL

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS)

CI/CD

Infrastructure as Code

AI coding tools

Job description

About Vogo

Vogo is a global travel platform that brings all types of accommodations into one place, making it easy for travelers to find the perfect stay.

From downtown hotels and luxury resorts to private vacation rentals and remote cabins, Vogo offers the widest selection of accommodations worldwide. Vogo's proprietary technology then scans billions of data points to surface the best deals across millions of properties, streamlining discovery, and booking for every traveler.

Since launching out of Wilbur Labs in 2018, Vogo has rapidly become one of the most trusted travel platforms globally, surpassing $1 billion in gross bookings in just two years. Vogo is headquartered in Dallas and led by a team of travel industry veterans.

About this Role

Vogo is seeking a versatile, highly skilled Senior Backend Engineer to join our engineering organization. In this role, you'll help ensure high performance, reliability, and scalability, and contribute to the architecture and direction of our systems. Our backend systems are the backbone of the traveler experience, and this role plays a critical part in scaling our platform to support millions of users and high-volume transactions.

The ideal candidate will own key backend initiatives and help shape engineering culture, collaborating closely with product, engineering, and leadership to build the services and APIs that power our platform.

This role will report directly to the Head of Engineering. This is a full-time hybrid position, based in Dallas.

• Design, architect, and implement robust APIs and services using Node.js, PostgreSQL, and Redis
• Optimize complex SQL queries and schemas to ensure lightning-fast performance across large datasets
• Leverage AI coding tools (Claude, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, etc.) as a core part of your development workflow, and contribute to integrating AI/LLM-powered features into our platform
• Tackle high-scale engineering challenges to ensure reliability and efficiency under heavy traffic
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, engineering, and leadership teams on backend features
• Proactively identify and resolve technical debt; lead refactoring projects to future-proof our stack
• Participate in team standups, code reviews, and deployment processes
• Mentor and support other engineers, helping to elevate team-wide technical excellence
• Take ownership of projects and drive initiatives from concept to production
• Help lead releases and share ownership of release readiness alongside other senior engineers
• Mentor and support engineers across the team while helping establish and maintain technical standards and best practices
• Act as a technical point of contact for your area, proactively flagging risks and pushing back on scope when something doesn't fit our stack

• 8+ years of backend software engineering experience
• Strong experience with Node.js and PostgreSQL (or equivalent relational databases)
• Strong SQL skills - able to write, debug, and optimize complex queries on large datasets
• Demonstrated AI fluency - actively uses AI tools in day-to-day engineering work
• Experience working on high-volume, consumer-facing platforms
• Solid understanding of backend architecture, distributed systems, and scalability principles
• Experience with DevOps practices and cloud infrastructure (preferably Google Cloud or AWS), including CI/CD, monitoring, and infrastructure as code
• Entrepreneurial mindset with a self-driven, ownership mentality
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills

• Experience in the travel, marketplace, or e-commerce space
• Experience scaling systems to millions of daily users
• Experience building and deploying machine learning models using Vertex AI or similar platforms (e.g., SageMaker, Azure ML)
• Experience with React and Next.js
• Contributions to open-source projects or tech communities

• Competitive salary + equity
• Top-tier laptop provided100% company-paid health benefits for base plan coverage, with the option to upgrade to higher-tier plans
• 401(k) with company match
• Unlimited, guilt-free vacation days
• Annual wellness stipend (gym + other wellness activities)
• Monthly house cleaning stipend
• Annual travel allowance
• Monthly cell phone & internet usage stipend
• Charity donation company match
• Employee referral bonus
• Team offsites/activities