Senior Backend Engineer

• Every day, millions of developers use HackerRank to prove their skills. We’re looking for a Senior Backend Software Development Engineer who can drive the technical direction of critical backend systems and lead the delivery of high-impact, platform-level initiatives. You will own the architecture and evolution of core backend services, mentor engineers across teams, and be a key technical decision-maker ensuring our platform remains fast, reliable, and scalable as we grow our global user base
• Architect, design, and lead the implementation of complex backend systems and services that power core product experiences at scale
• Define and drive technical strategy for your domain, making key decisions on system design, technology choices, and long-term architectural direction
• Own the end-to-end reliability and performance of critical backend services, establishing SLOs, monitoring, and incident response best practices
• Design scalable API frameworks and data models that serve as foundations for multiple product teams and external integrations
• Lead cross-functional technical initiatives spanning multiple teams, coordinating with frontend, infrastructure, product, and design stakeholders
• Identify and drive large-scale refactoring efforts, tackling tech debt and evolving legacy systems into modern, maintainable architectures
• Mentor and grow engineers on the team through design reviews, code reviews, and hands-on technical guidance
• Contribute to engineering-wide standards, tooling, and processes that raise the bar for code quality and developer productivity

Benefits

• Every HackerRanker gets a MacBook Pro, monitor, mouse, and keyboard
• We invest in your professional development and provide annual funding for L&D courses
• Your well-being is our top priority. We offer access to numerous mental health resources throughout the year
• Bring your besties to HackerRank – and get paid when they join the team
• We offer comprehensive health plans and cover 100% of premiums for some plans
• You have the chance to share ownership of the company with employee stock options
• Wherever you’re located, we have programs to help you prepare for retirement
• We offer special benefits to ensure you’re engaged and set up for success while working remotely
• Need a new office chair? We offer a monthly stipend to support the tech setup of your choice
• We offer generous PTO plans for you to rest or treat yourself to the vacation of your dreams
• Work from home, the beach, or wherever you’re most productive as long as your tasks get done
• Enjoy company-wide days off and Limited Meeting Fridays to relax and recharge

• Feel energised by ambiguity and be able to structure loosely defined problems and drive them to well-engineered solutions
• Track record of leading technical projects from ambiguous problem statements through to production delivery
• Ability to evaluate and make technical recommendations on AI tooling, APIs, and integration patterns for your team and domain, including cost, latency, reliability, and security considerations
• Expertise in at least one modern backend programming language, such as Python, Ruby, Go, Java, or Node.js, with strong fundamentals across the stack
• Actively follow developments in AI research and tooling, distinguish hype from engineering value, and drive adoption of AI-augmented practices within your team
• Strong understanding of caching strategies (Redis/Memcached), asynchronous messaging (Kafka/RabbitMQ), and event-driven architectures
• Proven ability to use AI across the software development lifecycle, including architecture exploration, implementation, code review, test generation, documentation, incident analysis, and technical writing
• Solid understanding of AI/ML fundamentals, including transformer architectures, embedding models, inference optimisation, RAG patterns, fine-tuning and prompt-engineering trade-offs, and evaluation methodologies
• Hands-on experience with containerisation (Docker/Kubernetes), CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code practices
• Think beyond the immediate task and consider the long-term health, extensibility, and operational cost of the systems you build
• Deep expertise with relational databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL stores, including schema design, query optimisation, and data modelling for high-throughput workloads
• 3–6 years of experience building and operating production backend systems at scale
• Deep, hands-on proficiency with AI-powered development tools (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code), including developing workflows and best practices that you can teach others
• Strong working knowledge of LLMs and agentic AI systems, including model capabilities and limitations, context management, tool use, and when and how to integrate AI into backend systems
• Genuinely enjoy helping other engineers improve through mentorship, knowledge sharing, and raising the engineering bar
• Proven ability to design and build distributed systems, including making architectural decisions around service decomposition, data consistency, fault tolerance, and observability
• Lead by influence, earning trust through strong technical judgment and a collaborative, ego-free approach
• Take ownership of the overall quality and direction of the systems your team delivers, not just your own code
• Significant experience with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including serverless architectures, managed services, and cost optimisation
• Experience building platform-level APIs, SDKs, or developer tools consumed by internal or external engineering teams
• Deep expertise in system design patterns such as Microservices, CQRS, Event Sourcing, or Domain-Driven Design, with real-world application
• Experience designing and operating systems serving millions of concurrent users with strict latency and availability requirements
• A history of driving engineering culture improvements, whether through RFC processes, architecture review boards, or engineering blog contributions