Lead Backend Engineer; f​/m​/x API & Platform

Lead Backend Engineer (f/m/x) API & Platform

Location:

Hamburg, Hybrid (2–3 days/week onsite). 30 Days Vacation. English B2 required.

Are you enthusiastic about intelligent and effective software solutions to the energy transition? Join suena energy as a Senior Backend Engineer and become a founding member of our new platform team. Shape complex backend systems and APIs that integrate data, analytics, and optimization for real‑time energy trading.

suena energy is a green tech startup specializing in algorithmic energy trading for energy storage systems and renewables.

Our vision: a world where clean energy is used reliably, economically, and intelligently. Our AI‑powered software maximizes the revenues of large‑scale energy storage and renewable assets on European short‑term power markets—while minimizing risk.

We’re a team of 38 people, combining a warm, supportive team culture with true startup drive. Following our successful Series A, we’re now building a dedicated platform integration team from scratch—relieving our modeling and data science teams from operational bottlenecks. As one of the first Senior Engineers, you’ll have real ownership, direct impact, and the chance to shape our technical standards and team culture.

• Tech Stack:
  Python (Django/FastAPI), Postgre
  
  SQL/Timescale
  
  DB, Redis, Celery, Docker, AWS, Git Lab CI/CD, Sentry, Grafana
• Your Focus:
  Scalable API and backend architecture, event‑driven systems, new feature development, legacy API improvements, secure user management
• Team:
  Newly formed platform squad with two Senior Engineers, one Junior Engineer, and one Modelling expert transitioning from the Modelling team, direct CTO access, collaborative culture, async‑friendly, regular pair programming
• Product:
  Advanced energy trading & optimization platform, real‑time APIs, data‑driven, ML‑integrated, high complexity
• Who thrives here:
  Senior backend engineers with leadership ambition, cloud & API experience, and a love for robust, scalable systems
• Must‑haves: 5+ years backend experience, cloud deployment, API authentication & authorization, zero‑downtime deploys, experience with user management systems, security mindset
• Deal breakers:
  No cloud/API/auth experience, mainly CRUD web app background, desire to work fully solo

• Lead the design, development, and evolution of suena’s backend and API infrastructure—ensuring scalability, performance, and reliability as our platform grows.
• Build, optimize, and maintain robust APIs and API‑driven data integrations that connect real‑time trading, analytics, and forecasting engines.
• Drive automations to streamline data flows and system processes across the platform.
• Mentor and support a growing engineering team, setting technical standards and driving best practices in architecture, testing, and deployment.
• Collaborate closely with data science, modelling, and product teams to bring complex analytics and optimization into production.
• Balance new feature delivery and legacy system improvements, always with a focus on security, data integrity, and high availability.
• Design, implement, and continuously improve secure user management systems, including authentication, authorization, and role‑based access controls.

• 5+ years’ experience in backend development, ideally with Python/Django or FastAPI, and complex, data‑driven systems (e.g. energy, finance, IoT, trading).
• Confident designing and scaling APIs, databases (Postgre
  
  SQL/Timescale
  
  DB), and distributed/cloud‑based architectures (AWS preferred).
• Proven track record leading teams or projects; strong mentoring, code review, and technical direction skills.
• Hands‑on with Dev Ops, CI/CD, Docker, async workflows (Celery, Redis), and modern testing/monitoring setups.
• Security‑first mindset: experience implementing authentication, authorization, and reliable, zero‑downtime deployments.
• Pragmatic, collaborative, and proactive—comfortable with both greenfield engineering and legacy code refactoring.
• Excellent communication skills in English (B2/C1); able to translate technical challenges for cross‑functional teams.
• Deal breakers:
  No cloud/API/auth…