Senior Software Engineer, Backend

About the role

We are looking for senior backend engineers passionate about backend technology, excellent user experience and system reliability. The ideal candidate has helped lead the technical design and implementation of backend features on at least one sizable production application within the past year. A senior backend engineer at Perpay will spend their time writing code, reviewing PRs, mentoring engineers, and helping scope & design new features. We are looking for people who can bring backend technical expertise to push our technology forward — whether it’s hosting a lunch-and-learn on a new backend technology or directing a large refactor. We value engineers who demonstrate excitement around solving tough problems and delivering solutions in a fast-paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve RESTful APIs used by our frontend and internal systems
• Own data modeling decisions across our relational databases with an eye toward performance and maintainability
• Improve reliability, observability, and operational excellence of our backend systems (metrics, logging, tracing, alerting)
• Participate in architectural decisions around service boundaries, asynchronous workflows, and distributed system tradeoffs
• Diagnose and resolve production issues across multiple services
• Contribute to infrastructure-as-code and CI/CD improvements to increase developer velocity and system stability
• Partner with product and stakeholders to translate complex business rules into maintainable backend systems

What You’ll Bring

• 5+ years of experience building web applications at scale in at least one modern language / framework (e.g. Python/Django, Rails, etc.)
• 2+ years of experience leading technical teams and large, complex projects
• Deep understanding of relational databases (e.g., Postgres), query optimization, indexing strategies, and schema evolution
• Experience operating production systems in a large cloud provider (e.g. AWS)
• Familiarity with containerized environments (Docker) and orchestration systems (Kubernetes)
• Experience with background job systems and message queues (e.g. Celery)
• Working knowledge of caching strategies (e.g. Redis)
• Experience with monitoring/observability tooling (e.g. Datadog, CloudWatch)
• Strong understanding of system reliability, failure modes, and operational tradeoffs
• Able to communicate complex system behavior clearly to non-technical stakeholders
• A solutions-oriented mindset, willing to step outside your primary domain to unblock teammates and ensure successful delivery

Pay

NYC-level total cash-comp (base $160k into the $200’s, plus equity and a discretionary cash bonus)

Benefits

• Premium medical benefits (fully paid base plan, and very reasonable premium for the buy-up option)
• 4% employer 401k match
• Unlimited PTO policy
• Remote weeks around major holidays + extra holiday on weekends like MDW and LDW
• High quality catered lunch by local chefs, 4 days / week
• Gym subsidy
• Paid cell phone + plan
• Student loan repayment program
• Relocation assistance
• Generous team member discounts

Schedule

This is not a remote opportunity; it is 100% onsite (#LI-Onsite) (#LI-TH1) (#LI-AK1)

About Perpay

Perpay is a certified B Corp and Philadelphia’s most impactful growth-stage startup. We are driven by a mission to significantly improve the financial stability of everyday Americans. For the past decade, we have established strong product-market fit and a profitable, efficient operating model across a suite of products, positioning Perpay as the premier financial partner for consumers with subprime credit.