Staff Backend Engineer

Pocket Prep•Durham, NC

11d•Hybrid

About The Position

As a staff backend engineer you’ll play a key role in shaping the services that power our mobile and web platforms, directly impacting the experience of students, educators, and partners around the world. You will work to ensure our different clients are serviced consistently across the API and that future endpoints fit well into the overall system architecture. In this role, you won’t just write code — you’ll help shape the future of our platform. You’ll work closely with talented teammates across engineering, product, and design to define and implement robust, scalable APIs and services. Your work will touch every layer of our backend architecture — from routing critical traffic and managing assessment data to optimizing integrations for enterprise partners and crafting clean, well-tested solutions to complex technical challenges. As a staff member of the team, you’ll also help guide engineering direction through mentorship, thoughtful code review, and active participation in technical design sessions. You’ll have opportunities to lead kickoffs, advocate for best practices, and contribute to long-term strategic decisions — including evaluating and prototyping next-gen server infrastructure in modern languages like Go or Rust. This is an ideal role for someone who is self motivated, thrives on thoughtful problem-solving, enjoys turning product requirements into elegant backend solutions and is motivated by the impact of their work on learners across the globe.

Requirements

8+ years of professional backend experience, a majority w/ TypeScript and NodeJS
Proven ability to design and maintain RESTful APIs
Strong focus on code quality, testing, and documentation
Experience with MongoDB or other NoSQL databases
An engineer’s mindset - writing code that will stand the test of time and address the core problems, not just the symptoms
A desire to collaborate with the team, knowledge share, mentor, and work together to find optimal solutions
Comfortable being nimble and experimental throughout the course of product development; recognizing tradeoffs, making decisions and sharing the impact with stakeholders
Love for continued learning individually and as a team, as well as making education more accessible for others

Nice To Haves

Experience delivering solutions in other languages, particularly Go or Rust
Experience optimizing database performance (indexing, query tuning)
Experience managing CI and deployment pipelines
Experience working on projects from ideation and inception through to release and maintenance
Prior involvement in mentoring or engineering leadership

Responsibilities

Design, build, and maintain robust backend services in a TypeScript/Node.js environment, ensuring reliability, performance, and comprehensive test coverage
Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and engineering teams to develop APIs and infrastructure that support new features across mobile and web platforms
Lead and contribute to technical planning, helping to define scope, evaluate complexity, and architect solutions that balance short-term needs with long-term scalability
Work closely with fellow engineers to align backend and frontend efforts, solve challenging problems, and ensure seamless cross-platform functionality
Monitor and maintain system health, including optimizing MongoDB database performance, debugging production issues, and coordinating with cloud infrastructure providers
Champion engineering excellence by evolving our internal standards, mentoring peers, and fostering a strong culture of code quality, collaboration, and continuous learning

Benefits

Stability: We're 12+ years old, 100% profitable without investor backing and we continue to have year-over-year growth.
Work/Life Balance: Freedom to live your life while accomplishing something awesome for everyone in education. Flexible PTO and a 3-week company-wide holiday break from mid-December through the New Year.
Competitive Compensation: Generous profit-sharing program and total compensation that targets the 75th percentile.
100% Healthcare: We cover all of our employees' healthcare premiums because we are invested in your well-being. We also cover 80% of dependents.
Hybrid Flexibility: You can work where and when you are most effective. We have an office in downtown Durham, North Carolina, and are supportive of hybrid work options.
Give Back: We are active participants in our communities through volunteer partnerships with local nonprofits. We offer VTO (volunteer time off) for independent engagement with your community.

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