Sr. II Backend Engineer, Mobile API

Socket.dev; San Mateo (CA); Hybrid; USD 176,000 - 220,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary

Equity package

401K matching

Healthcare plans

Professional development reimbursement

Hybrid work schedule

Job summary

Slickdeals is seeking a Senior II Backend Engineer to provide technical leadership and API support for iOS and Android apps. You will own complex backend initiatives, shape architectural direction, and collaborate with Mobile, Web, Product, Design, and Platform teams to deliver reliable, scalable consumer experiences.

The ideal candidate brings deep backend expertise, refactors legacy systems, and demonstrates strong API, performance, and security capabilities in a fast-moving environment.

Qualifications

• Experience supporting large-scale iOS and Android apps.
• Backend development with PHP and modern PHP frameworks.
• Designing and operating high-traffic RESTful or GraphQL APIs.
• Understanding API contracts, versioning, caching, and error handling.
• Performance tuning for APIs with relational databases (MySQL/PostgreSQL).
• Secure authentication and authorization (JWT or similar).
• Experience with distributed systems (RabbitMQ, Kafka, Redis).
• Mobile push integrations (FCM, APNs) and testing strategies.
• Cloud, containers, Docker/Kubernetes, CI/CD (GitHub Actions).
• Observability: monitoring, logging, incident response, RCA.
• Experience with A/B testing, analytics, and feature flags.
• Ability to lead projects across teams and communicate tradeoffs.

Responsibilities

• Lead design and delivery of complex APIs and backend services for mobile apps.
• Own backend initiatives from discovery through rollout and support.
• Define API contracts, dependencies, and release strategies with mobile teams.
• Influence backend architecture and establish reusable patterns.
• Identify risks and present options and tradeoffs to partners.
• Improve reliability, scalability, and observability of mobile-facing services.
• Lead design reviews, raise engineering standards, and code reviews.
• Diagnose production issues spanning mobile, APIs, data services, and infra.
• Reduce technical debt and simplify legacy systems while delivering features.
• Contribute to cross-platform web API development as needed.

Skills

Backend leadership

API design

Performance optimization

Security best practices

Debugging

Communication

Tools

PHP

RESTful APIs

GraphQL

JWT

Redis

Kafka

RabbitMQ

Docker

Kubernetes

GitHub Actions

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Firebase Cloud Messaging

APNs

Job description

About Slickdeals:

We believe shopping should feel like winning. That’s why 10 million people come to Slickdeals to swap tips, upvote the best finds, and share the thrill of a great deal. Together, our community has saved more than $10 billion over the past 26 years.

We’re profitable, passionate, and in the middle of an exciting evolution—transforming from the internet’s most trusted deal forum into the go-to daily shopping destination. If you thrive in a fast-moving, creative environment where ideas turn into impact fast, you’ll fit right in.

The Purpose:

Slickdeals is seeking a well-rounded Senior II Backend Engineer to provide technical leadership and dedicated API support for our iOS and Android applications. This engineer will own complex backend initiatives, shape architectural direction, and collaborate with Mobile, Web, Product, Design, and Platform teams to deliver reliable, scalable consumer experiences.

The ideal candidate brings deep backend expertise, strong technical instincts, and the ability to modernize an existing codebase while working effectively within established patterns. You should be a quick learner with experience refactoring legacy systems and a solid understanding of A/B testing, analytics, and application performance optimization. Full-stack experience is a plus, enabling you to contribute across platforms when needed.

In this role, you will design and deliver services that power innovative mobile features, lead large-scale cross-functional initiatives, and mentor other engineers. The position is ideal for someone who enjoys balancing hands-on execution with broader technical leadership and wants to help shape the future of the Slickdeals mobile platform.

We continually explore technologies and approaches that can strengthen our products, architecture, and engineering practices. If you bring additional experience that could help us evolve our platform, we would love to hear from you.

What You’ll Do:

• Lead the design and delivery of complex APIs and backend services supporting iOS and Android applications.
• Own backend initiatives from discovery and technical planning through implementation, rollout, and production support.
• Partner with mobile engineers to define API contracts, dependencies, release strategies, and backward‑compatibility requirements.
• Influence backend architecture and establish patterns that can be reused across mobile products.
• Identify technical risks early and present practical options and tradeoffs to engineering and product partners.
• Improve the reliability, scalability, performance, security, and observability of mobile‑facing services.
• Lead technical design reviews and raise engineering standards through code reviews, testing strategies, and documentation.
• Diagnose complex production issues that span mobile clients, APIs, data services, and infrastructure.
• Reduce technical debt and simplify legacy systems while balancing near‑term product delivery.
• Contribute to cross-platform including web API development when business priorities require it.

Required Qualifications:

• Experience supporting large-scale consumer iOS and Android applications.
• Extensive professional experience in backend software development, including strong experience with PHP and a modern PHP framework.
• Proven experience designing and operating high‑traffic RESTful or GraphQL APIs.
• Deep understanding of API contracts, versioning, authentication, authorization, caching, pagination, idempotency, and error handling.
• Strong experience optimizing the performance of APIs that integrate internal services and relational databases, including caching strategies, API monitoring, and RDBMS query optimization, particularly with MySQL or PostgreSQL.
• Experience implementing secure authentication and authorization using JWT or similar token‑based approaches.
• Experience with distributed systems and asynchronous processing technologies such as RabbitMQ, Valkey, Redis, Kafka, or other queue‑and‑event-driven architectures.
• Experience integrating mobile push notifications through Firebase Cloud Messaging and APNs.
• Experience creating comprehensive unit, integration, contract, and API testing strategies
• Experience with cloud platforms, containers, Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and modern deployment practices, including GitHub Actions.
• Strong production experience with monitoring, logging, alerting, incident response, and root‑cause analysis.
• Experience with feature flags, experimentation platforms, analytics tracking, and A/B testing.
• Demonstrated ability to lead projects across teams without relying on formal authority.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical tradeoffs to non‑engineering partners.

Preferred qualifications:

• Strong understanding of mobile‑specific constraints, including unreliable networks, latency, app‑version fragmentation, backward compatibility, and phased releases.
• Full‑stack experience with Vue and TypeScript and a modern frontend framework.
• Experience modernizing legacy services or decomposing monolithic applications.
• Experience influencing engineering practices across teams.

What distinguishes the Senior II level:

• Owns ambiguous, high‑impact technical problems spanning multiple teams or systems.
• Defines technical direction instead of focusing only on assigned implementation.
• Anticipates dependencies and risks before they affect delivery.
• Creates reusable solutions and raises engineering standards beyond an individual project.
• Influences architecture and execution across Mobile, Backend, Web, and Platform teams.
• Develops other engineers through technical guidance, and knowledge sharing.

Success in this role:

• Mobile initiatives receive consistent backend leadership from discovery through release.
• API requirements and dependencies are identified early, reducing delivery delays.
• Mobile‑facing services become more reliable, scalable, observable, and maintainable.
• Mobile and backend teams operate with clearer ownership and fewer coordination gaps.
• Architectural improvements create measurable benefits across multiple projects and teams.

LOCATION: San Mateo, CA

Hybrid schedule visiting our San Mateo office three days a week (Tues-Thurs).

Slickdeals Compensation, Benefits, Perks:

The expected base pay for this role is between $176,000 - $220,000. Pay is based on a number of factors including market location and may vary depending on job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience. Exact compensation will be discussed during the interview process and tailored to the candidate's qualifications.

• Competitive base salary, annual bonus, and equity package
• Competitive paid time off in addition to holiday time off
• A variety of healthcare insurance plans to give you the best care for your needs
• 401K matching above the industry standard
• Professional Development Reimbursement Program

Work Authorization

Candidates must be eligible to work in the United States.

Slickdeals is an Equal Opportunity Employer; employment is governed on the basis of merit, competence and qualifications and will not be influenced in any manner by race, color, religion, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), national origin/ethnicity, veteran status, disability status, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, mental or physical disability or any other protected status. Slickdeals will consider qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with the "Ban the Box" legislation. We may access publicly available information as part of your application.

Slickdeals participates in E-Verify. For more information, please refer to E-Verify Participation and Right to Work.

Slickdeals does not accept unsolicited resumes from agencies and is not responsible for related fees.