Senior/Staff Backend Engineer

About the Company

Blackbird Labs is a loyalty and payments platform establishing meaningful connections between the world’s best restaurants and their customers. Backed by Union Square Ventures, a16z, and Amex Ventures, Blackbird is revolutionizing the restaurant industry through customizable loyalty programming and a consumer app.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain core backend APIs
• Collaborate with product, design, and engineering peers to deliver features aligned with business goals
• Contribute to system architecture and implement scalable, robust solutions
• Uphold and promote backend best practices, focusing on code quality, testing, and performance
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers and foster a collaborative team culture
• Participate in product and design discussions regarding implementation and feasibility

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience building and deploying backend APIs
• Strong proficiency in Kotlin or another statically typed JVM language
• Deep experience designing and maintaining RESTful APIs using domain-driven design principles
• Solid understanding of SQL databases, including schema design and performance tuning
• Ability to work autonomously in a fast-moving environment
• Experience mentoring engineers and working cross-functionally

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with the Spring framework and Hibernate
• Familiarity with the U.S. payments ecosystem (debit, credit, ACH)
• Exposure to DevOps practices, AWS, and Terraform
• Interest or experience in blockchain and cryptography
• Experience productionizing generative AI features