Intermediate Backend Engineer at Sproutly

The Role

• We are seeking a talented and motivated Mid-Level Backend Engineer to join our dynamic team. You will play a crucial role in designing, developing, and maintaining the robust, scalable, and secure backend systems that power our educational finance and payments platform.

Core Responsibilities

• System Development & Architecture: Design, develop, and maintain high-performance backend systems using our core technologies, primarily PHP (Laravel) and Go. You will actively participate in architectural decisions, translating our product vision for educational financing into elegant technical solutions.
• API & Microservices: Develop and maintain clean, well-documented RESTful APIs that power our platform for institutions, parents, and internal teams. You will work within our micro-services architecture, ensuring seamless communication between services using tools like AWS SQS and Kafka.
• Database Management: Design and optimize database schemas in PostgreSQL and MySQL to securely handle sensitive financial and user data. You will be responsible for data integrity, transformation, and ensuring the performance of our databases, leveraging AWS RDS.
• Collaboration & Mentorship: Work closely with front-end developers, product managers, and testing teams in an agile environment to deliver new features for our payments and credit products. You will also contribute to a positive team culture by mentoring junior engineers and participating in code reviews to ensure high-quality, maintainable code.
• Cloud & DevOps: Support and work with the Devops team to deploy, monitor, and scale our applications on AWS, and other providers to ensure high availability and reliability for educational institutions and families.

Requirements

Job Requirements

Technical Proficiency:

• Strong proficiency in object-oriented PHP, with significant experience using the Laravel framework.
• Working knowledge of or a strong interest in learning Go.
• Solid experience with relational databases, preferably PostgreSQL.
• Hands-on experience with AWS services (e.g., RDS, S3, SQS, ElastiCache).
• A working knowledge of message queuing systems like Kafka or RabbitMQ.
• Familiarity with building and consuming RESTful APIs within a microservice architecture.
• Proficient with Git for version control.

Best Practices:

• A deep understanding of scalable application design principles.
• Experience writing clear, maintainable, and testable code, including unit tests.
• Ability to create and maintain clear technical documentation.

Collaboration & Mindset:

• Excellent communication skills and a collaborative, customer-focused attitude.
• A proactive approach to problem-solving and a desire to stay updated with emerging technologies.
• Teachable and open to feedback, with a strong willingness to ask for help early instead of struggling, to ensure team velocity and personal growth.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Your success in this role will be measured by:
• Code Quality & System Performance: The quality of your code, the low number of escaped bugs, and the uptime and reliability of the applications you build.
• Execution & Velocity: Your ability to burn through backlogs efficiently and consistently deliver features promptly (No excuses).
• User & Stakeholder Satisfaction: High scores in application user satisfaction and prompt, accurate responses to internal and external needs.
• Documentation & Clarity: The quality and clarity of your technical documentation for APIs and system architecture.