Principal Backend Engineer - Distributed Systems

Placements24; Sandton; Hybrid; ZAR 1,200,000 - 2,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity options

Fully remote work

Flexible scheduling

Professional development budget

Health insurance

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a highly experienced Principal Backend Engineer to join a fully remote, elite engineering team. You will design, build, and scale distributed systems that power our platform, mentor senior engineers, and steer backend technical strategy.

You will tackle architectural challenges, optimize performance, and collaborate with product teams to deliver robust solutions in a remote-first environment. A strong background in large-scale systems and modern languages is required.

Qualifications

• Masters or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent extensive experience.
• 8+ years of backend software development experience focusing on distributed systems.
• Experience designing large-scale, high-throughput backend systems.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable, fault-tolerant distributed systems.
• Lead architectural decisions and technology choices for backend services.
• Mentor and guide engineers to uphold technical excellence and best practices.
• Optimize system performance, reliability, and resource utilization.
• Collaborate with product management to deliver robust technical solutions.
• Champion best practices in coding, testing, security, and deployment.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex production issues.

Skills

Distributed systems

Backend architecture

Mentoring

Cloud platforms

Kubernetes

Databases

Go

Java

Python

Education

Master's degree in Computer Science

PhD in Computer Science

Tools

Kubernetes

AWS

GCP

Azure

Docker

Job description

Our client is seeking a highly experienced and innovative Principal Backend Engineer to join their fully remote, elite engineering team. In this role, you will be responsible for designing, building, and scaling complex distributed systems that form the backbone of our platform. You will tackle challenging architectural problems, mentor senior engineers, and drive technical strategy for backend development. This is an exceptional opportunity for a thought leader in backend engineering to shape the future of our technology stack and work on highly scalable, mission-critical systems in a collaborative, remote-first environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain highly scalable, fault-tolerant, and performant distributed systems.
• Lead architectural decisions and technology choices for backend services.
• Mentor and guide other engineers, fostering a culture of technical excellence and best practices.
• Optimize system performance, reliability, and resource utilization.
• Collaborate with product management and other engineering teams to define and deliver robust technical solutions.
• Champion best practices in coding, testing, security, and deployment.
• Troubleshoot and resolve complex issues in production environments.

Requirements

• Master's or Ph.D. in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent extensive experience.
• 8+ years of professional experience in backend software development, with a significant focus on distributed systems.
• Expertise in designing and building large-scale, high-throughput systems.
• Proficiency in one or more modern backend languages (e.g., Go, Java, Python, C++).
• Deep understanding of microservices architecture, data consistency, and concurrency.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure) and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Strong knowledge of databases, caching strategies, and message queuing systems.

Benefits

• Industry-leading salary and generous equity options.
• Top-tier health, dental, and vision insurance coverage.
• Fully remote work with flexible scheduling options.
• Significant budget for professional development, conferences, and continuous learning.
• Opportunity to work on challenging problems with a brilliant and supportive team.