Senior Backend Engineer (Core Platform) (d/f/m)

About NEWWORK

NEWWORK is building the world’s first AI-native ERP platform: modular, FLOW-orchestrated, and people-centric. Our mission is to redefine ERP — from rigid, siloed systems of record to a dynamic System of Work that proactively assists, automates, and learns. With modules like HR+, MAP OrgChart, Expenses+, and Finance+, we deliver a unified, intelligent ERP ecosystem that runs enterprises in real time.

Tasks

Role Summary

As a Backend Engineer (Core Platform) , you’ll design, build, and operate the foundational services that power NEWWORK’s AI-native ERP. You will own core backend systems — our distributed, AI-driven backbone, the FLOW runtime, multi-tenant identity & access control, and the developer platform that enables rapid product delivery.

This position is for a Senior Platform Engineer who will work remotely (within Germany or Romania) to craft and deliver on our enterprise SaaS core platform. You’ll collaborate closely with Product Engineers, AI Engineers, and Security to turn business and AI requirements into reliable, scalable platform capabilities. Strong backend skills are essential, along with experience in distributed systems, event-driven architectures, and modern permission systems.

At NEWWORK, we practice Vibe Engineering — fast, collaborative, and AI-augmented product creation. That means rapid prototyping with Cursor and other tools, coding together in “flow sessions,” and co-innovating directly with customers.

Core Responsibilities

• Platform & Backend Engineering: Design and implement core services for our FLOW runtime, orchestration, and service-to-service communication in a multi-tenant SaaS environment.
• Event-Driven Architecture: Evolve our streaming and messaging backbone (topics, contracts, schemas), ensuring resiliency, idempotency, backpressure handling, and observability (outbox, saga/CQRS, replay, dead-lettering).
• Identity, Access & Permissions: Build and operate fine-grained, organization-aware permission systems (RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC), policy evaluation, and enforcement across services and data layers; integrate with MAP OrgChart for contextual access.
• API & Data Contracts: Define versioned APIs (gRPC/REST), schema governance, and compatibility guarantees; champion contract testing and documentation.
• Reliability & Scale: Set SLOs/SLIs, capacity plans, and autoscaling; engineer for high availability, disaster recovery, and graceful degradation across regions.
• Security by Design: Own authentication/authorization flows (OIDC/OAuth2/SSO), secrets/key management, encryption in transit/at rest, audit logs, and compliance-ready controls.
• Developer Experience: Level up CI/CD (trunk-based, progressive delivery, canaries), ephemeral environments, internal SDKs/CLIs/templates, and paved roads that accelerate teams.
• Observability & Operations: Establish end-to-end tracing, metrics, and structured logs; lead incident response, postmortems, and continuous improvement.
• AI Enablement: Provide safe execution rails for agents (policy guardrails, rate limits, sandboxing, auditability) and streaming interfaces that keep AI in the loop, not in the way.
• Collaboration & Vibe: Work in short, AI-assisted cycles; partner with lighthouse customers to validate platform capabilities in real-world scenarios.

Requirements

Your Profile

• Experienced Builder: You have a proven track record (approx. 5–8 years) of building software products, preferably SaaS applications.
• Backend Depth: Several years building large-scale backend systems in a modern language (e.g., Java/Kotlin, Go, Rust, or TypeScript), with strong fundamentals in concurrency, transactions, and performance.
• Distributed Systems: Hands-on experience with event-driven architectures and stream processing; comfortable with delivery semantics, exactly-once/at-least-once trade-offs, and patterns like saga, outbox, and CQRS.
• Permissions Expertise: Practical experience designing/operating authorization systems (RBAC/ABAC/ReBAC), policy engines, and graph-based permissions; you think in terms of principle-of-least-privilege and explainability.
• Cloud-Native: Proficiency with containers and orchestration (e.g., Kubernetes), service meshes, and infrastructure as code (e.g., Flux/Terraform).
• Data Systems: Familiarity with relational and NoSQL stores, caching, schema evolution, and multi-tenant data isolation strategies.
• APIs & Contracts: You champion schema-first design, compatibility, and robust API lifecycle management (gRPC/REST, OpenAPI/Protobuf).
• SRE Mindset: Comfortable defining SLOs, building reliable releases, and running on-call with effective incident management and blameless postmortems.
• Security Awareness: Solid understanding of AuthN/AuthZ, OAuth2/OIDC, SSO/SCIM, and secure software supply chain practices.
• Vibe Engineering: Enthusiastic about AI-augmented workflows, collaborative prototyping, and fast feedback with customers.
• Nice to Have: Experience with ERP/business domains, multi-region SaaS, data residency, compliance (e.g., audit trails), and AI runtime safety.

Benefits

What You’ll Love About Working Here

• Cutting-Edge Tech Environment: Work with an advanced toolchain that few companies have – from AI pair-programmers to automated devops. We “work fast and build smart”by utilizing modern AI-powered workflows, giving you a unique opportunity to be at the forefront of AI-assisted software development.
• Builder’s Paradise: You’ll join a team of fellow builders. We operate with a flat hierarchy and empower engineers to make decisions. Have an idea for a new feature or an improvement? You can run with it. We emphasize high agency and trust our engineers to drive projects.
• Mission & Impact: Our SaaS product helps enterprise clients streamline their business operations. By joining us, you’ll solve meaningful problems at scale and see the direct impact of your work on important customers. This isn’t just another app – it’s a platform that reinvents how companies will operate.
• Remote-First Freedom: We are  remote-first by design – work from home, a co-working space, or the city of your choice (as long as it’s in Germany/Romania). There’s no commute, and you have flexibility in organizing your day around core business hours.
• Competitive Compensation & Perks: We offer a competitive salary, stock options, and a benefits package (including hardware of your choice, education platforms, budget for latest AI tools, and work from anywhere). We believe in rewarding talent and effort. Plus, you’ll be part of a growth journey – as the company scales, so can your role and career path.