Staff Engineer Backend & Architecture (all genders)

Role Summary

your tasks

You are responsible for and further develop the backend and service architecture across teams and ensure consistency, scalability and maintainability.

You lead the technical migration of our legacy monolith towards a modular, API-first service architecture — from planning to concrete implementation.

You design our event-driven architecture on Kafka and establish the streaming patterns that our teams build on.

You make and document far-reaching architectural decisions, coordinate cross-team alignment, and clearly communicate trade-offs to engineering teams and non-technical stakeholders.

You support and develop engineers of various experience levels through pair programming, design reviews and constructive feedback on code quality.

You are responsible for AWS infrastructure decisions in the service context, including deployment pipelines and cloud cost efficiency.

You identify and introduce AI tools to increase developer productivity and product quality.

You proactively communicate technical risks, progress and recommendations to your managers and peers.

this is you

You already work at staff engineer level (or comparable) — you have demonstrated technical leadership across teams, not just within your own team.

You have expert knowledge of backend engineering in a modern, typed language including a framework as well as a deep understanding of modern architectural patterns. Our stack is PHP/Symfony and TypeScript; Experience in this is a plus, not a requirement.

You have gradually broken down a monolith in production into services and know why such migrations fail.

You designed event-driven architectures with Kafka — event and topic design, delivery semantics and schema evolution.

You have in-depth experience with AWS, understand how cloud infrastructure influences the delivery of services, and know Kubernetes as a deployment target.

You are AI-savvy - you use AI tools actively and specifically in your daily work.

You communicate proactively and clearly - both written and verbal - and act as an enabler and catalyst: you help teams find a common technical direction instead of setting it.

You speak English fluently; German is a plus.

what we offer

Remote First: Whether home office, Germany-wide coworking spaces or modern headquarters in Cologne – we cover all types of work.

Well-equipped: We provide the right hardware so that you don’t miss anything in your home office. After the trial period, you will also receive a budget for ergonomic working from home.

Flexibility: With us you can organize your working hours flexibly: With a core working time of 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., you have the freedom to combine your work and private life in a relaxed manner. With our Workation Worldwide program, you can work anywhere for up to 60 working days a year - now worldwide within ±4 hours of the German time zone.

Benefits à la carte: With Probonio you can redesign your benefits every month: Use your budget for food subsidies, daycare subsidies, vouchers or book your Urban Sports Club subscription - flexibly via the app.

Relaxation & time out: You benefit from 32 days of paid vacation per year. In addition, Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve are completely work-free for us. With our Culture Day you can also take a day off that is important to you personally - consciously and individually.

Company-wide bonus: Our Shared Success Plan promotes a shared focus on our goals by sharing our company's success transparently and fairly with everyone.

Mobility & Sustainability: You can lease your own electric vehicle at attractive conditions through FINN JobAuto. You also benefit from bike leasing.

Team spirit: Our teams meet in person once every term for brainstorming, workshops and of course our popular summer and winter celebrations.

Healthy at work: We support you with the Urban Sports Club, life coaching programs and other offers so that you can get through your everyday work fit and stress-free.

Dog-F riendly Headquarters: Your four-legged friend is welcome in the office -- just bring your dog to work!

And even more: 20% subsidy for company pension schemes, access to our attractive discount portal and lots of fun (!) - "Spark joy together" is not one of our company values for nothing.

type of employment

Full-time, 40 hours, permanent

Would you like to become part of the team?

We look forward to your application!

All people are welcome here, regardless of gender/gender identity, disability/impairment, nationality, ethnic origin, religion/belief, age, sexual orientation. The main thing is that you fit in with us.