Senior Backend Engineer (Europe)
Job description
About Trigger.dev
Trigger.dev is the platform for running reliable AI agents and workflows. Developers use it to build, deploy, and scale production systems with built-in tools for orchestration, scheduling, monitoring, and debugging.
Our Cloud product is a managed service where we deploy our users' code and auto-scale from zero to millions of executions. Today, we serve thousands of teams building AI apps and agents, handling hundreds of millions of executions per month.
About the position
We're looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to help us build our Open Source and Cloud product. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in Node.js, TypeScript, Postgres, Redis, and cloud infrastructure. This role requires both technical depth and the ability to think strategically about our platform's future.
What you'll be doing
You'll do a variety of things including:
Designing and implementing SDK and platform features. Shipping new capabilities end to end, from API surface to production rollout.
Database design. Developing database schemas and data models that hold up as the product scales.
Query performance and data access. Creating and optimising query performance and data access patterns.
Building backend systems that stand up to production load. Reliability, throughput, and durability are part of the job, not someone else's.
Scalable APIs and services. Designing and implementing API endpoints and services that handle real customer traffic.
Security as a default. Applying security best practices in everything you ship.
Monitoring, logging, and debugging. Implementing the observability tooling that lets us spot problems and fix them fast.
Architecture and technical roadmap. Contributing to architectural decisions and shaping where the platform goes next.
We build in public, so you can see some of the things you might work on here.
Working at a Commercial Open Source Software company is more than just coding:
We have an active community on Discord and GitHub. Everyone on the team helps customers, reviews PRs, and creates issues.
Having great documentation is essential. Everyone writes docs.
We're a product-led growth company, so everyone is expected to get involved in creating content like code examples, blog articles, videos, and tweets.
Requirements
You really need to have:
Expertise in Node.js and TypeScript. We use Remix.
Expertise with Postgres and Redis. You've designed schemas, tuned queries, and run these in production.
Cloud infrastructure experience. AWS, GCP, or Azure.
Comfortable being on call. Reliability is a shared responsibility for the engineering team.
Open to in-person events throughout the year. If you're remote, we'll arrange these so the team gets real time together.
You'll be an amazing fit if you have:
A proven track record of contributing to open source projects.
Previously been a venture-backed startup founder.
Experience with React, or better still, Remix.
Worked on a high throughput system.
Designed SDKs for developers.
Experience with self-managed Kubernetes.
Familiarity with Linux.
OTel or "o11y" experience.
Worked at a developer tools company.
Experience with Go.
About the team
We are a small team with a flat hierarchy.
We encourage continuous learning and personal development.
Everyone operates autonomously; we trust you to get the job done, but to also quickly raise your hand if you need help.
We care about our customers and the open-source community.
Being a start-up, the work is challenging and fast-paced, but we also understand the importance of taking time off to recharge.
Salary
We use PostHog's salary calculator to benchmark fair and transparent compensation, which varies based on employee location and level of experience (this role falls under "Backend engineer").
Benefits
Generous, transparent compensation and equity - We hire the best talent and pay to reflect that. We also offer equity as a way to ensure everyone is invested in the success of the company.
Async working - Need a heads-down day or meeting-free days to stay productive? No problem!
Home office - We will help provide equipment for a comfortable setup so you're as productive at home as you are in the office.
Generous vacation - We believe it's important to take time off. We encourage you to take your 25 days vacation excluding national holidays, plus sick leave and generous parental leave.
Training budget - An annual budget to contribute towards learning such as purchasing books, an Audible subscription or online courses.
Pension and 401k contributions - Enroll in our company pension scheme or we'll contribute directly to your private pension.
Our values
We are proud to be open source - We believe in the open source community and building a great free-to-use product. We encourage community contributions and are public about what we are building.
We ship uncomfortably fast - As a startup, moving fast is key. We are pragmatic about what we build, when we build it, and value iterative development above all.
Working autonomously - We don't tell you what to do. We decide as a team what will have the biggest impact for our customers and prioritise what we work on from that.
Interview process
Application. We'll review your application, CV, and any code samples or open source contributions you share.
Screening call. A chat about your background, the systems you've built, and what you're looking for next.
Hiring manager call. A deeper technical conversation about your work and how you'd approach the role.
Paid task day. You'll spend a paid day working on a real engineering problem with us, then walk us through your thinking with the team.
Final interview. A call with a couple of members of the wider team to answer any remaining questions and align on culture fit.
References & offer. If everyone is happy, we'll make you an offer to join us.
If this sounds like your dream job, we can't wait to hear from you. If you're not sure that you exactly fit these requirements, get in touch anyway!