Senior Backend Engineer
Job description
About the role
You will architect, implement, and operate backend services that form the foundation of our product platform. The position involves setting technical direction, ensuring reliability and scalability, and working closely with cross-functional partners. You will translate product needs into robust backend solutions while mentoring peers and upholding engineering excellence. The work directly supports millions of developers and accelerates our integration of human and AI collaboration. You will define and lead the architecture of backend systems that serve core product experiences at global scale. This role requires translating complex product requirements into scalable service designs that balance performance with maintainability. You will own critical services that power our coding assessment infrastructure and developer collaboration features. Your contributions will have a direct impact on how engineering teams build and assess talent worldwide.
Key facts
What you'll do
Define and lead the architecture of backend systems that serve core product experiences at global scale.
Design data models and API frameworks that become foundations for multiple product teams and external integrations.
Establish reliability practices including monitoring, SLOs, and incident response for critical backend services.
Coordinate large-scale initiatives with frontend, infrastructure, product, and design teams.
Identify opportunities to replace legacy components with modern, maintainable architectures through targeted refactoring.
Guide engineers via technical reviews and hands-on coaching to elevate code quality and system thinking.
Drive the practical application of AI tools such as GitHub Copilot and Claude Code, creating workflows that improve team productivity.
Make decisions on service decomposition, data consistency, fault tolerance, and observability for distributed systems.
Implement secure and efficient data processing pipelines that handle high-volume assessment and evaluation workloads.
Optimize database performance and infrastructure costs while maintaining strict reliability standards.
Collaborate with product managers to define technical requirements and success metrics for new features.
Champion engineering best practices including testing, documentation, and operational excellence.
Partner with data science teams to integrate machine learning features into the core assessment platform.
Lead on-call rotations and contribute to the development of platform-wide operational standards.
Requirements
Bring 3-6 years of experience building and operating production backend systems at scale.
Demonstrate expertise in at least one modern backend language such as Python, Ruby, Go, Java, or Node.js.
Show a track record of designing distributed systems, including decisions on boundaries, resilience, and observability.
Provide deep knowledge of relational databases like PostgreSQL and MySQL, covering schema design and query optimization for high-throughput workloads.
Explain caching strategies with Redis or Memcached, asynchronous messaging with Kafka or RabbitMQ, and event-driven patterns.
Have hands-on experience with containerization, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code approaches.
Show ability to lead technical projects from initial exploration through production deployment.
Maintain strong written and verbal communication skills to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.
Nice to have
Demonstrate deep, practical experience with AI-powered development tools and established practices for teaching them to others.
Skills & tools
PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, Kafka, RabbitMQ, Docker, Kubernetes
Our platform
HackerRank helps companies like NVIDIA, Amazon, and Microsoft hire and upskill developers based on skills, not pedigree. More than 2,500 innovative organizations use our platform to build strong engineering teams. Software has entered an era where humans and AI build side by side, and the definition of technical talent is evolving. We focus on identifying and investing in next-generation skills with better methods and tools.
What you'll do
HackerRank Careers connects teams with engineers through shared coding challenges and structured interviews. You design assessments, run automated tests, and review results on a single platform.
The environment supports continuous hiring aligned with product cycles. Teams collaborate on evaluations, track progress, and refine roles. Candidates practice problems, schedule sessions, and receive feedback. The focus remains on reliable, repeatable hiring workflows that scale with engineering demand.