Backend Engineer

We are a Berlin-based B2C fintech operating in stealth, founded by two repeat founders (YC alum, exit) with prior 10+ year careers in investment banking and strategy consulting, respectively. We recently raised investment to assemble a 15-person, exceptionally strong core team. Our culture is built on ownership and clarity. We align with you on vision, then set KPIs and required resources together—and then trust your drive and expertise.

The Opportunity As a Backend Engineer, you will contribute to building and evolving our fintech product. Working alongside our CTO and senior engineers, you'll help design and implement the backend services that power our platform. You'll have the opportunity to learn from experienced colleagues while taking ownership of meaningful features and growing your skills in a fast-paced environment.

What You'll Work On

• Owning end-to-end development of backend services and APIs within our microservices architecture
• Designing and implementing event-driven workflows for complex financial operations
• Building performant Node.js services that handle real-world scale
• Shaping our data layer—schema design, query optimization, and data modeling in PostgreSQL
• Driving integrations with third-party financial services and APIs
• Improving code quality and engineering practices through reviews and technical discussions
• Shipping features alongside product and frontend teams, from concept to production

What We're Looking For

• Node.js Proficiency:
  Solid experience with Node.js (Express, NestJS, or similar) for building backend services. You understand async patterns and can write clean, maintainable code.
• SQL Database
  
  Experience:
  
  Comfortable working with relational databases (Postgre
  
  SQL preferred). You can write efficient queries and understand basic schema design.
• API Development:
  Experience building and consuming RESTful APIs.
• Microservices Familiarity:
  You've worked with microservice-based systems and understand the basics of service communication and distributed systems.

Nice to Have

• Experience with event-driven architectures and messaging systems (Kafka, Rabbit
  
  MQ, or Pub/Sub)
• Exposure to GCP or other cloud platforms (AWS, Azure)
• Familiarity with containerization (Docker)
• Understanding of CI/CD practices
• Knowledge of authentication/authorization patterns (OAuth 2.0, JWT)

Mindset & Approach

• Eager to Learn:
  You're curious, ask good questions, and actively seek to improve your skills.
• Ownership Mentality:
  You take responsibility for your work and follow through on commitments.
• Team Player:
  You collaborate well with others, are open to feedback, and communicate clearly.
• Problem Solver:
  You enjoy debugging issues and figuring out how things work.
• Attention to Detail:
  You care about code quality and think through edge cases.

Compensation & How We Work

• Competitive salary commensurate with experience (€65k–€85k)
• On-site in Berlin-Mitte, with flexible remote work as you see fit (typically 3–4 days in office, flexible on specific days)
• High autonomy, low politics, fast decision-making—we value impact over process
• Top-tier equipment—whatever tools you need to do your best work
• Growth opportunity—work directly with experienced founders and engineers

We're an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. If you're excited about the role but don't meet 100% of the criteria, we'd still love to hear from you—particularly if you bring unique perspectives or experiences that would strengthen our team.