Junior Cloud Backend Engineer

Waites Sensor Technologies Inc•Huntsville, AL

1d•Onsite

About The Position

We build large-scale industrial IoT software systems that ingest, process, and analyze data from hundreds of thousands of connected devices. We're looking for a Junior Cloud Backend Engineer to help modernize the heart of our cloud platform—the APIs, telemetry ingestion pipeline, and backend services that power our products. This is a highly hands-on engineering role for someone who enjoys solving complex technical challenges, modernizing legacy systems, and building reliable, scalable cloud services. You'll work alongside a small team of senior engineers to safely migrate critical production systems from a legacy PHP environment to modern serverless architectures while sharing responsibility for the operational health, reliability, and scalability of our platform.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience
Foundational knowledge of backend software development through internships, co-ops, coursework, or personal projects
Familiarity with cloud technologies, preferably AWS services such as Lambda, API Gateway, SQS, Kinesis, RDS, or DynamoDB
Ability and willingness to learn, maintain, and help modernize existing PHP applications
Understanding of API design, distributed systems, asynchronous processing, and event-driven architecture concepts
Exposure to data ingestion pipelines, queues, streams, or serverless technologies
Strong software testing mindset with familiarity with unit, integration, or regression testing
Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code and modern CI/CD practices
Experience using AI-assisted software development tools to support coding, testing, or problem-solving
Strong communication, collaboration, and analytical skills
Eagerness to learn new technologies, receive feedback, and contribute within a collaborative

Nice To Haves

Internship, co-op, academic, or personal project experience involving IoT, telemetry, or data-intensive applications
Exposure to messaging or streaming technologies such as SQS, Kafka, Kinesis, RabbitMQ, or MQTT
Experience with one or more backend languages, such as Python, Node.js, Go, or PHP
Familiarity with databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, DynamoDB, Redis, or TimescaleDB
Basic understanding of cloud security, data privacy, or compliance frameworks such as SOC 2
Exposure to observability, monitoring, or logging tools
A portfolio, GitHub profile, or examples of relevant academic or personal projects

Responsibilities

Engineer the core backend platform, including the API tier, telemetry ingestion pipeline, and supporting cloud services
Modernize a legacy PHP application by migrating services incrementally to a serverless architecture using safe, low-risk deployment strategies
Read, understand, and improve existing production systems while ensuring uninterrupted service for customers
Design and build highly reliable APIs, backend services, and scalable data ingestion pipelines
Rebuild sensor-data ingestion using durable, replayable streaming architectures to improve reliability and disaster recovery
Develop characterization tests and leverage record-and-replay validation techniques to ensure migration accuracy before production deployment
Contribute to Infrastructure as Code, CI/CD pipelines, monitoring, and observability to improve platform reliability and operational excellence
Participate in the team's on-call rotation and troubleshoot production systems you own
Leverage AI-assisted development, testing, and code review to improve engineering productivity and software quality
Partner closely with platform, frontend, AI, and firmware engineering teams to deliver cohesive, scalable solutions
Carry out additional responsibilities as needed to support business objectives