Sr. Software Engineer, Backend

About the role

Navan is building the next generation of intelligent travel experiences, where loyalty, personalization, and AI agents help travelers make better decisions before, during, and after every trip. As a Senior Software Engineer (Backend), you’ll drive the technical vision, architecture, and execution for the highly available, distributed services that form the backbone of Navan’s global travel and expense platform.

Responsibilities

• Architect Core Backend Systems: Design, build, and scale high-performance, fault-tolerant microservices that process millions of travel and expense transactions globally.
• Lead Technical Initiatives: Drive complex, cross-functional engineering projects from conception to deployment, making critical architectural trade-offs and setting technical standards for the wider backend organization.
• Optimize Performance & Reliability: Build robust APIs, asynchronous event-driven architectures, and scalable data pipelines with a relentless focus on low latency, high availability, and operational excellence.
• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner closely with product management, engineering leadership, data, and platform teams to translate ambiguous business requirements into cohesive, enterprise-grade technical solutions.
• Raise the Engineering Bar: Champion maintainable code, thoughtful abstractions, and rigorous testing. Act as a force multiplier by mentoring engineers, leading architecture reviews, and fostering a culture of strong operational ownership.

Requirements

• 6+ years of software engineering experience building and operating highly scalable, distributed production systems at an enterprise or global scale.
• Deep technical expertise in backend engineering stacks such as Java, TypeScript/Node.js, Python, or Go, alongside a strong mastery of engineering fundamentals.
• Extensive hands-on experience designing microservices, complex APIs, event-driven workflows (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ), caching strategies, and distributed databases.
• Proven track record of driving technical vision and leading the architecture of large, multi-team projects from inception through to successful production rollouts.
• Exceptional skills in systems observability, production debugging, and ensuring the reliability of critical Tier 1 services.
• Product mindset with the ability to balance immediate product delivery with long-term technical health and scalability.
• Experience with travel platforms, fintech, payment processing, or complex financial ledgers is a strong plus.

Pay

Pay Range: $113,400 USD - $252,000 USD