Senior Backend Engineer

About this role

<p>BuildOps is the leading vertical AI platform for commercial specialty contractors. We combine field service, project management, scheduling, and finance in a single, modern cloud platform built specifically for the trades. Our mission is to power the operations behind the world’s most important buildings and infrastructure by giving contractors software that actually works the way they do.</p> <p>We are an <strong>AI-native company</strong> and are investing deeply in intelligent automation across our product and our internal engineering tooling. You’ll be joining a team that moves quickly, holds a very high bar for quality, and cares deeply about the impact our work has on customers who keep the world running.<br><br><strong>The Role:</strong></p> <p>As a <strong>Senior Backend Engineer</strong>, your primary focus will be building and enhancing the backend platform that powers BuildOps. You’ll work on a cross‑functional squad to design and implement scalable, reliable services and APIs that support our web, mobile, and integration experiences.</p> <p>You’ll own projects end to end—from requirements and design through implementation, testing, deployment, and ongoing operation—while mentoring other engineers and helping to shape the technical direction of the team. You care deeply about quality, performance, and reliability, and you are excited to use AI tools to move faster and ship</p> <p><strong>What You'll Do:</strong></p> <ul> <li>Build and maintain <strong>backend services and APIs</strong> (GraphQL and REST) using <strong>Node.js and TypeScript</strong></li> <li>Design and evolve <strong>real-time, event-driven systems</strong> that power core BuildOps workflows</li> <li>Drive the <strong>full software development lifecycle</strong>: requirements, design docs, implementation, testing, deployment, and maintenance</li> <li>Write <strong>clean, well-tested, well-documented code</strong> with appropriate abstractions and automated tests</li> <li>Improve <strong>observability and reliability</strong> with the right metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting</li> <li>Profile and optimize services for <strong>latency, throughput, and cost efficiency</strong>.</li> <li>Use and help standardize <strong>AI-powered tools</strong> for code generation, refactoring, debugging, test creation, and analysis</li> <li>Collaborate closely with product, design, and other partners to translate business needs into technical solutions and tradeoffs</li> <li>Participate in and often lead <strong>technical design reviews, code reviews, and architecture discussions</strong></li> <li>Mentor other engineers, share best practices, and help raise the overall bar for the team</li> </ul> <p><strong>What We Look For:</strong></p> <p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Must‑Have Skills</strong></p> <ul> <li><strong>5+ years</strong> of professional experience in backend or full‑stack development, including <strong>1–2+ years</strong> in a senior or lead capacity on large-scale applications</li> <li>Strong experience building <strong>distributed web applications</strong> and backend services (microservices or service‑oriented architectures)</li> <li>Deep hands-on experience with <strong>Node.js</strong> (preferably with <strong>TypeScript</strong>) in production environments</li> <li>Experience designing, building, and maintaining <strong>GraphQL (Apollo)</strong> and/or <strong>REST</strong> APIs</li> <li>Solid <strong>database design and modeling</strong> experience (SQL and/or NoSQL) and understanding of tradeoffs between different storage technologies</li> <li>Strong <strong>computer science fundamentals</strong>: data structures, algorithms, concurrency, and object‑oriented or typed design</li> <li>Proven experience using <strong>AI tools</strong> to enhance your development workflow (e.g., code generation, refactoring, debugging, test creation, or analysis), plus curiosity about emerging AI technologies</li> <li>Ability to <strong>take ownership</strong> of projects end to end and operate proactively in an ambiguous, fast‑paced environment</li> <li>Excellent <strong>communication and collaboration</strong> skills; you listen well, seek context, and explain technical decisions clearly</li> </ul> <p style="padding-left: 40px;"><strong>Nice To Have Skills</strong></p> <ul> <li>BS or MS in <strong>Computer Science, Computer Engineering</strong>, or a related technical field</li> <li>Experience with:</li> <ul> <li><strong>Event-driven architectures</strong> and messaging systems</li> <li><strong>Cloud platforms</strong> (e.g., GCP, AWS, or similar)</li> <li>Containerization and orchestration (<strong>Docker</strong>, <strong>Kubernetes</strong>)</li> <li>Additional backend languages or ecosystems (e.g., <strong>Python</strong>) for services, automation, or data pipelines</li> </ul> <li>Experience with <strong>observability tooling</strong> (metrics, logging, tracing) and performance profiling in distributed systems</li> <li>Exposure to <strong>machine learning</strong> or data-driven…