Staff Backend Engineer (AWS/Kafka)

Location: Remote across Germany; optional coworking spaces and headquarters in Cologne. Remote workations are available for up to 60 days per year from anywhere within ±4 hours of German time.

Company

hirify.global develops software for electric mobility and charging infrastructure.

What you will do

• Own and evolve backend and service architecture across product teams, ensuring consistency, scalability, and maintainability.
• Lead the migration of a legacy monolith toward a modular, API-first service architecture from planning through hands-on delivery.
• Design event-driven architecture with Kafka and establish reusable streaming patterns, including event and topic design.
• Document architectural decisions, align teams, and communicate technical trade-offs to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Mentor engineers through pair programming, design reviews, and code-quality feedback.
• Drive AWS infrastructure and deployment pipeline decisions, improve cloud cost awareness, and identify AI tooling for engineering productivity and product quality.

Requirements

• Staff Engineer level or equivalent, with demonstrated technical leadership across multiple teams.
• Expert backend experience with a modern typed language and framework; PHP/Symfony and TypeScript experience is advantageous.
• Production experience incrementally decomposing monoliths into services and understanding migration risks.
• Experience designing Kafka-based event-driven architectures, including delivery semantics and schema evolution.
• Strong AWS experience and knowledge of Kubernetes as a deployment target.
• Fluent English is required; German is a plus.

Culture & Benefits

• Remote-first work with flexible working hours and core hours from 9:00 to 12:00.
• Hardware for the home office and an ergonomic equipment budget after the probation period.
• 32 days of paid vacation, additional holidays on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, and a personal Culture Day.
• Company-wide bonus plan, company pension contribution of 20%, and flexible benefits including meal subsidies, childcare support, vouchers, and sports membership.
• In-person team meetings once per tertial for workshops and brainstorming, plus wellbeing and coaching programs.