Senior Backend Engineer (f/m/x) - remote

Founded in 2017, refurbed is Europe’s fastest-growing marketplace for refurbished products, active in 23 European countries and having surpassed €2Bn in GMV — all while being profitable. With beautiful headquarters in Vienna, we operate as a remote-first company and have been recognised as a Top DACH Employer by Kununu for four consecutive years.

Our mission is to make sustainable consumption the easy choice by enabling customers to buy products up to 40% cheaper while significantly reducing CO₂ emissions.

If you thrive in an environment that values momentum, ownership, and impact, you’ll feel at home here. We’re a fast-paced, high-performance team that works hard and challenges itself everyday. To enable this high-performance every team member enjoys full autonomy over their location (we’re remote-first).

We are seeking an experienced Senior Backend Engineer (f/m/x) to join our App squad. In this role, you will be responsible for the design and implementation of scalable backend services that power refurbed's mobile app and marketplace. Just as importantly, you understand how a native mobile app consumes those services - so you can guide backend decisions, your own and those of other squads, to fit the app's needs and constraints. You will work as part of a cross-functional product squad, collaborating closely with other engineers, product managers, designers, and business members to deliver robust, reliable, and high-performance solutions that enhance the experience of both our customers and our sellers.

Our technology stack is built on proven, modern, and open-source technologies. On the backend, we primarily use Go, gRPC, PostgreSQL, Redis, and RabbitMQ, with Node.js / TypeScript powering a number of app-facing services. Our mobile app is built in React Native + Expo, and on the web frontend we leverage Vue.js, Alpine.js, and Tailwind CSS. Our infrastructure runs on Google Cloud Platform, orchestrated with Kubernetes, ensuring reliability and scalability at every layer.

WHO YOU ARE

• You have 7+ years experience designing and building scalable backend services in a modern production environment
• You have strong proficiency in Go and deep understanding of distributed systems and service-oriented architecture
• You are comfortable with JavaScript/TypeScript, or confident you can pick up Node.js quickly - with strong Go fundamentals, we expect the rest to come easily. Existing Node.js experience is a plus.
• You've worked on a team that builds and maintains a native mobile app. You don't need to write native code yourself, but you have real exposure to how mobile apps consume backend services and understand the constraints and caveats they introduce (API design for mobile, versioning and backwards compatibility, release cycles, latency, offline behaviour). You can spot when a backend decision won't fit the app and flag it early.
• You are well-versed in SQL and relational database design
• You have general knowledge of the frontend world, and are able to perform basic tasks in our frontend apps
• You're a self-starter with strong ownership, initiative, and the ability to quickly learn and navigate complex systems
• You're open-minded and communicate with clarity, directness, and respect
• You value humility, are low-ego, and thrive in a collaborative, transparent culture
• You have excellent English skills and you are based in a European time zone.
• You are curious and eager to experiment with new and better ways of developing software, whether it's a new framework, the latest AI tool, or developing a new practice
• A degree in Computer Science (or a related field) or equivalent work experience is desired as it provides a strong foundation for tackling the complex challenges we work on.
• Bonus: you're comfortable operating beyond your own squad - reviewing designs and guiding other engineers whose work touches the mobile app. This role has room to grow into a broader technical leadership scope for the right person.

WHAT YOU'LL DO

• Design, build, and maintain our core APIs and backend services that power the mobile app and marketplace
• Own the operations and the monitoring of production systems
• Be the mobile-aware voice in backend decisions across squads: review designs and API changes, yours and other teams', to make sure they fit the needs and constraints of our mobile app, and flag caveats early
• Integrate third-party systems and APIs into our platform
• Own design and implementation of new features and services
• Identify best practices and create/suggest standards to be used by whole engineering department
• Documents and demonstrates solutions by developing documentation, flowcharts, layouts, diagrams, charts, code comments and clear code
• Contribute to sustaining refurbed engineering culture by mentoring more junior colleagues and onboarding new joiners
• Collaborate closely with other engineers, product managers, and business stakeholders to deliver high-quality solutions
• Proactively offer insights and presents achievements and results in relevant meetings
• Occasionally propagate your backend changes to frontend

WHY YOU WILL ENJOY WORKING WITH US:

Our Culture and Values:

• Decisions should be made based on facts and not by hierarchy levels? We sure think so!
• We embrace giving and receiving feedback, testing and welcoming new ideas, as well as sharing our knowledge across the company.
• You fail sometimes? Well, so do we! We’re all just human, let’s learn from our mistakes to improve in the future!
• No matter who you love, where you’re from, who you pray to, whether you pee sitting down or standing up – we are a bunch of talented people who enjoy spending our time making a difference!

Personal & Professional Development:

• You'll have access to a dedicated learning budget within your department to support your growth, whether it's courses, conferences, or other learning opportunities that matter to you.
• We partner with Likeminded, offering you private sessions with experts for your personal growth and mental health.
• We frequently host internal workshops, allowing our teams to further develop their skills in different areas and enhancing collaboration across departments.

Flexibility:

• We care about a healthy work/life balance. We not only function and support a fully remote setting but also offer the possibility to work from our beautiful office in the vibrant heart of Vienna – we love dogs, so feel free to bring your furry little buddy too 😊
• We trust you to do the best job, so we don't care so much when you do it – you are able to self-organize.
• You will also be invited to take part in our office weeks, happening three times a year, where you will have the chance to work side by side with your colleagues and enjoy the team-building events and on-site workshops

…and much more! See https://careers.refurbed.com/ for further insights!