Staff Backend Engineer – Platform & Domain Foundations

Posted 4 hours ago

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About the role

  • Staff Backend Engineer shaping Skillshare’s online learning platform backend architecture. Building TypeScript services, GraphQL contracts, and reliable event-driven systems for millions of learners.

Responsibilities

  • Shape backend architecture and domain models, including bounded contexts, aggregates, domain events, and service boundaries
  • Build and evolve TypeScript/NestJS services using Domain-Driven Design and ports-and-adapters patterns
  • Own GraphQL API contracts, Postgres data models, and safe evolution patterns
  • Build reliable event-driven systems designed for durability, idempotency, retries, and distributed-system realities
  • Use an AI coding harness as a core development tool and improve context, standards, tests, and guardrails
  • Raise engineering quality through code reviews, testing, technical documentation, architecture diagrams, and decision records
  • Turn ambiguous product needs into well-designed systems in partnership with product and engineering teammates
  • Work within the weekly delivery cadence, moving foundational work from Monday goals to Friday demos

Requirements

  • 8+ years of experience building backend systems in production
  • Deep TypeScript and Node.js experience
  • Hands-on experience with Domain-Driven Design, including bounded contexts, aggregate boundaries, value objects, and domain events
  • Understanding of hexagonal architecture / ports and adapters
  • Strong experience designing and owning GraphQL APIs
  • Knowledge of schema modeling, batching, N+1 problem, pagination, error semantics, and live schema evolution
  • Experience designing event-driven and distributed systems
  • Knowledge of at-least-once delivery, idempotency, ordering, retries, transactional boundaries, and transactional outbox patterns
  • Strong relational data modeling and SQL fundamentals
  • Experience with schema design, live-data migrations, indexing, transaction boundaries, and intentional read/write path design
  • Experience with NestJS or significant production experience in another modern Node.js backend framework such as Fastify, Express, Hono, AdonisJS, or tRPC
  • Highly proficient with AI coding tools such as Claude Code or a comparable agentic coding harness
  • Ability to direct, review, and improve AI-generated code while owning architecture, context, quality, and final results
  • Strong testing instincts and ability to design testable systems
  • Ability to use fast implementations or test doubles and reserve integration testing for system seams
  • Exceptional written and visual communication of technical decisions
  • Experience with architecture decision records, domain glossaries, system diagrams, data and event flows, and technical standards
  • High degree of autonomy in solving ambiguous product or technical problems
  • Ability to maintain working-hour overlap with the US-based team until at least 1:00 PM Eastern each day
  • Strong written communication and ability to leave clear context for asynchronous collaboration

Benefits

  • Flexible remote work
  • Home office stipends
  • Co-working spaces in multiple cities
  • Unlimited vacation policy with a required minimum
  • Work-life balance support
  • Unlimited PTO
  • Gender-neutral parental leave
  • Anniversary sabbaticals
  • Healthy stipends for creativity, learning, and personal wellness
  • Opportunities to collaborate across marketing, brand, product, and engineering teams
  • Inclusive work environment

Job type

Full Time

Experience level

Lead

Salary

Not specified

Degree requirement

No Education Requirement

Tech skills

Distributed SystemsGraphQLJavaScriptNode.jsPostgresSQLTypeScript

Location requirements

RemoteCanada

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