Senior Backend Engineer – Scalable Data Infrastructure

Enlighten; Columbia (MD); Hybrid; USD 138,000 - 200,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

100% premiums covered (healthcare, viz

401k 10% match

PTO + 10 holidays

Education/training allowances

Job summary

Enlighten is seeking exceptional Backend Developers to join our high-impact engineering team. We build and operate critical backend systems that manage trillions of records and service hundreds of thousands of queries daily across the DoD. You will help design, build, and scale core infrastructure with pragmatic, autonomous execution.

We value low-ego teams, autonomy, and delivering tangible impact. Hybrid work is supported, with a Columbia, MD office presence 1–2 days per week.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of experience as a software engineer, or 7 years with a Masters in related field.
• Experience designing, developing, and deploying complex backend systems.
• Proficiency in Java, Python, or Go.
• Experience with Trino or similar distributed SQL engines.
• Experience with containers and Kubernetes.
• Familiarity with PostgreSQL or similar relational databases.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain complex backend systems and services.
• Own challenging technical projects from concept to production.
• Develop RESTful APIs and backend services; modify open-source software like Trino.
• Implement identity federation (e.g., Keycloak) and data ingestion pipelines (Airflow).
• Improve deployment automation (CI/CD) with Kubernetes.
• Collaborate within a team of engineers and work with minimal supervision.

Skills

Java

Python

Go

Trino

Kubernetes

PostgreSQL

Airflow

Keycloak

API design

CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree in a related field

Masters degree (preferred)

Tools

Trino

Kubernetes

Airflow

Prometheus

AWS (S3, EC2, KMS, Bedrock)

Keycloak

Job description

Enlighten is seeking exceptional Backend Developers to join our high-impact engineering team. We build and operate critical backend systems that manage trillions of records and service hundreds of thousands of queries daily across the DoD. You will help design, build, and scale core infrastructure with pragmatic, autonomous execution.

We value low-ego teams, autonomy, and delivering tangible impact. Hybrid work is supported, with a Columbia, MD office presence 1–2 days per week.