Founding Backend Engineer (Platform)

Hiring on behalf of our client Title: Founding Backend Engineer (Platform) Time: Full-Time Location: Remote (Latin America, Europe, Canada, United States, South Korea or Singapore) Compensation: $225,000 - $300,000/year USD + competitive equity Visa Sponsorship: Not available The Company Our client is building a mobile-first crypto trading application for advanced, high-volume traders. Its focus is delivering a rich trading experience with reliable infrastructure, real-time market data and responsive performance. You will join a small founding team and work directly with the founder and product lead to develop the platform from its earliest stages. Role Overview Our client is seeking a hands-on Founding Backend Engineer operating at Staff level or above to build and own its platform backend. As one of three founding engineers, you will own the backend systems supporting data ingestion, processing and delivery. A separate trading systems engineer owns money movement. Your initial focus will be integrating third-party data providers into a reliable backend that enables a fast launch. Over time, you will develop in-house capabilities, including blockchain indexing, and evolve the architecture to support substantial data volumes and sudden traffic spikes.This role requires broad technical ownership, independent decision-making and the ability to deliver within a small startup team. Key Responsibilities - Design and build the platform backend from initial architecture through production deployment and ongoing operation. - Integrate third-party data providers and APIs into a reliable data layer, with fallback mechanisms. - Develop data ingestion and serving capabilities that deliver accurate, responsive information to traders. - Build real-time streaming infrastructure for live prices, positions and other user-facing data. - Develop in-house Solana and EVM indexing capabilities to progressively reduce reliance on external providers. - Design efficient database, caching and cloud infrastructure with attention to performance, reliability and operating costs. - Prepare the platform to handle sudden traffic bursts and investigate production incidents. - Work directly with the founder and product lead on architecture, feature delivery and product iteration. Requirements - Substantial backend engineering experience with demonstrated Staff-level or equivalent technical ownership. - Experience building and owning backend platforms at established brokerages, crypto wallets or mobile crypto trading products. - At least two years of recent professional crypto engineering experience. - Ability to independently take systems from initial design through implementation, deployment and production operation. - Strong architectural judgment and the ability to make practical trade-offs between delivery speed, reliability, performance and cost. - A hands-on approach, strong initiative and comfort working within a small founding team. - Legal eligibility to work in the relevant hiring location without employer visa sponsorship. - No contractual restrictions that would prevent joining the company or performing the role. The team is targeting approximately 6–15 years of backend engineering experience, with 8–12 years preferred. Demonstrated ownership and continued hands-on delivery are central to the assessment. Nice to Have - Experience with high-usage consumer applications or trading platforms. - Production experience with Rust, Go or TypeScript/Node.js. - Experience indexing Solana or EVM blockchain data. - Experience with WebSocket fanout, real-time data delivery and traffic spikes. - Experience with PostgreSQL and AWS or Google Cloud. - Experience integrating crypto market data providers. - Availability in North American or European time zones, particularly Eastern Time. Specific programming languages, cloud platforms and blockchain indexing experience are not mandatory requirements. Working Arrangement: This is a fully remote role with mainly written collaboration. Candidates may be based in Latin America, Europe, Canada, the United States, South Korea or Singapore. North American or European time-zone availability is preferred..