Senior Backend Engineer

Skape Industries LLC; New York (NY); Remote; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Remote-first culture

Ground Floor Equity

Unlimited PTO

Conference budget

Job summary

Skape is building the Uber of landscaping and is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer to power its real-time marketplace. You’ll design systems using TypeScript/Node.js and Firebase, handling bookings, matching, payments, and route optimization.

Work directly with the founder and Flutter engineers to ship fast, reliable APIs, scale from day one, and contribute to the technical roadmap with a pragmatic, shipping‑today mindset.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of backend engineering in production with Node.js/TypeScript.
• Experience designing RESTful APIs or GraphQL at scale.
• Solid knowledge of database design, indexing, and query optimization.
• Experience with payments (Stripe/PayPal or similar) and multi‑party flows.
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems and data consistency.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement scalable backend services using Node.js/TypeScript and Firebase Cloud Functions.
• Build and optimize real-time data pipelines with Firestore and complex marketplace matching logic.
• Develop payment infrastructure including escrow, splits, and payouts (Stripe Connect).
• Design geospatial systems for provider matching, route optimization, and service area management.
• Ensure security, authentication, and authorization; monitor and maintain observability for reliability.

Skills

Node.js/TypeScript

RESTful APIs / GraphQL

Distributed systems

Payments processing

Tools

Firebase

Firestore

Cloud Functions

Auth

Stripe

Job description

Skape is building the Uber of landscaping — a platform that instantly connects homeowners with top-rated landscaping professionals. We're transforming a $130 billion industry that's still run on phone calls, cash payments, and word-of-mouth referrals.

Founded by a Navy veteran and Columbia CS grad, Skape is a venture-backed startup based in New York. We're live, growing fast, and backed by investors who believe the home services industry is ready for a technology-first approach.

About the Role

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you'll design and build the systems that power Skape's real-time marketplace. Every time a homeowner books a service, a landscaper gets matched, a payment is processed, or a route is optimized — your code is making it happen. This is infrastructure that directly impacts thousands of real-world transactions every day.

Our stack is modern and opinionated: TypeScript everywhere, Firebase (Firestore, Cloud Functions, Auth) as our core platform, with strategic use of GCP services for compute-intensive tasks. We're building for scale from day one, but we also value pragmatism — shipping a working solution today beats a perfect one next month.

You'll work directly with the founder (who's a CS grad from Columbia and knows what good engineering looks like) and collaborate with our Flutter engineers to build APIs that are fast, reliable, and a joy to integrate with.

What You’ll Do

• Design and implement scalable backend services using Node.js/TypeScript and Firebase Cloud Functions
• Build and optimize real-time data pipelines with Firestore, handling complex marketplace matching logic
• Develop payment processing infrastructure (Stripe Connect) including escrow, splits, and payouts
• Design geospatial systems for provider matching, route optimization, and service area management
• Build authentication, authorization, and security systems to protect user data and transactions
• Set up monitoring, alerting, and observability to ensure platform reliability (99.9%+ uptime)
• Write comprehensive API documentation and maintain clean, well-tested codebases
• Contribute to architecture decisions and help define our technical roadmap

What We’re Looking For

Required

• 4+ years of backend engineering experience with Node.js/TypeScript in production environments
• Strong experience with Firebase (Firestore, Cloud Functions, Auth) or similar serverless/BaaS platforms
• Experience designing and building RESTful APIs and/or GraphQL services at scale
• Solid understanding of database design, indexing strategies, and query optimization
• Experience with payment processing (Stripe, PayPal, or similar) including complex multi-party flows
• Strong fundamentals in distributed systems, concurrency, and data consistency patterns

Nice to Have

• Experience building backends for marketplace or on-demand platforms
• Familiarity with geospatial queries, PostGIS, or GeoFirestore
• Experience with GCP services (Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, BigQuery, Cloud Scheduler)
• Open-source contributions or published technical writing

Why Skape?

We're a small team with big ambitions — your work will be visible and impactful from day one

Early-stage equity — you're not employee #10,000, you're helping build the foundation

Remote-first culture — work from anywhere, async by default, results over hours

Direct impact on a $130B industry that hasn't been disrupted yet

Work with a founder who's been in the trenches — Navy veteran, Columbia CS, led engineering at a Fortune 50 company

Ground Floor Equity

Build What Matters

Grow With Us

Unlimited PTO — we trust you to manage your time

$1,000/year conference and learning budget