Senior Backend Engineer

<p>acemate is building an AI learning &#x26; teaching platform for higher and further education institutions. We have strong traction, secured funding and are entering an exciting growth phase. We're looking for a passionate <strong>Senior Backend Engineer / Developer</strong> to drive our product forward and help us scale.</p>
<p><strong>About acemate</strong></p>
<p>Founded in 2024, acemate has quickly become the leading AI learning platform for higher and further education, trusted by top-tier institutions across four countries, including <strong>University of Cologne</strong>, <strong>WHU</strong> and the <strong>German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IHKs)</strong>.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Our Mission:</strong> Democratizing access to personalized learning. We don’t believe that AI will replace educators. Instead, we empower them to design and deliver personalized learning experiences at scale.</li>
<li><strong>Our Growth:</strong> We've raised pre-seed funding and are growing rapidly. While we focus on higher and further education in the DACH area today, we're already expanding into new regions and markets.</li>
<li><strong>Our Culture:</strong> We’re a young, driven team passionate about tackling the toughest challenges in education. We embrace builder culture and minimize scheduled meetings for ad-hoc discussions and maximized focus on coding and creating.</li>
</ul>
<h2>Tasks</h2>
<p><strong>What You'll Do</strong></p>
<p>As a <strong>Backend Engineer</strong> on our core team, you'll play a major role in shaping our technical roadmap and architecture. We'll give you full autonomy over the foundational systems that power our product. This spans everything from designing the initial database schema up to writing API responses and setting up observability dashboards.</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>End-to-end system ownership:</strong> You'll take full responsibility for the infrastructure you build, handling the entire lifecycle from data modeling and API design all the way to deployment and ongoing monitoring. You'll also iterate on our core architecture, making sure our <strong>Effect &#x26; TypeScript</strong> codebase remains highly maintainable, type-safe, and incredibly solid.</li>
<li><strong>Build complex logic beyond basic endpoints:</strong> Your primary focus is the heavy lifting of our platform. Rather than just wiring up simple CRUD operations, you'll design the advanced asynchronous workflows, intricate authorization rules, and sophisticated AI pipelines needed to actually solve hard user problems.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Examples of projects you might work on:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Robust authorization engine</strong> designed to handle complex permissions in various institutional setups by combining ABAC and ReBac</li>
<li><strong>Advanced AI pipelines</strong> built to extract text and visual data from documents using multiple models, then mapping those concepts directly into knowledge graphs</li>
<li><strong>Architecture migration</strong> shifting our core backend away from a fullstack monolith to a strictly type-safe API layer using Effect</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Tech Stack:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Backend</strong>: Effect.ts, Hono, oRPC, Bun, Typescript</li>
<li><strong>Database</strong>: PostgreSQL (via Supabase)</li>
<li><strong>Infrastructure:</strong> Cloudflare (Workers, Workflows, R2, KV, Hyperdrive), Google Cloud (Gemini, Cloud Run)</li>
<li><strong>Tooling</strong>: Axiom, Sentry, PostHog, Langfuse, Stripe</li>
<li><strong>AI</strong>: Vercel AI SDK</li>
</ul>
<p>Don't worry if you aren't familiar with every single tool on this list from day one. We trust your ability to learn quickly and pick up modern frameworks as we grow.</p>
<h2>Requirements</h2>
<p><strong>What We're Looking For</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>2+ years of software engineering experience</strong> with strong TypeScript skills</li>
<li><strong>Startup experience</strong>: You’re comfortable in fast-paced, evolving environments</li>
<li><strong>Balanced AI approach:</strong> You knew how to code before Cursor and Claude Code, but understand how to leverage them effectively</li>
<li><strong>Product passion:</strong> High identification with our mission to transform education</li>
<li><strong>Bonus</strong>: Experience with authz systems, infra/devops, AI, or frontend work (Next.js/React)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Benefits</h2>
<p><strong>Benefits</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Competitive salary package with equity component</li>
<li>Fully covered Deutschlandticket</li>
<li>BusinessBike (bike or e-bike via leasing, also for private use )</li>
<li>Working in a small but driven team built around performance and learning</li>
<li>Flexible environment with high degree of autonomy</li>
<li>Frequent team events and acemate parties! 🥳</li>
</ul>
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