Principal Backend Engineer (Architect Track) - Remote

Stack

Responsibilities

• ▹Set backend architecture standards and major technical decisions across teams
• ▹Lead the path from monolith toward a more modular, service-oriented backend
• ▹Define service blueprints: API conventions, EDA patterns, testing, observability, deployment
• ▹Design cloud architecture across AWS and GCP, including multi-region and geo-distributed designs
• ▹Work on high-load, real-time systems: live class infrastructure, latency budgets, caching, capacity
• ▹Decide buy vs. build vs. assemble across managed services, no-code tools, and agentic-coding POCs
• ▹Write production code: components, refactors, POCs, and product-critical features

Requirements

• ▹7+ years of backend engineering, deeply hands-on in Python
• ▹Production experience with FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Celery, Postgres, Redis
• ▹Strong AWS architecture experience (EKS, Lambda, RDS, SQS/SNS/EventBridge, and so on); GCP a plus
• ▹Experience designing high-load, latency-sensitive, and geo-distributed systems
• ▹Pragmatic judgment on buy vs. build vs. assemble
• ▹A deliberate working style: researches, weighs tradeoffs, documents and clearly explains decisions

Nice to have

• ▹LLM integrations in production (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI): evaluation, cost, reliability
• ▹Active use of agentic coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor)
• ▹EdTech or other high-scale consumer platform experience

Soft skills

What we offer

• ▹Fully remote work (core hours GMT+3)
• ▹Unlimited holidays
• ▹Bonuses and stock options

About the company

Novakid is an online English platform for kids, with 100,000+ students, 2,500+ teachers across 15+ countries, running live classes around the clock.