Principal Backend Engineer (Architect Track) - Remote
This is the employer's own posting, not a copy on a job board.
What we know
Is it still open?
Confirmed still open
Last checked 3h ago — checked against the employer's own applicant tracking system, which is the company answering directly.
We re-read the employer's own applicant tracking system and the posting was still there. That is the company answering directly.
How old is it?
Posted 161d ago
The date the source published, not the day we noticed it (2026-05-04). Last seen at its source just now.
Is it remote?
Marked remote on the employer's board
Their board carries a remote setting on this posting — a field they filled in, not wording we read. The location field names somewhere specific, which is usually where the team or the entity sits.
Who may apply?
Serbia
The description states no restriction of its own. This is the source's own tag.
Pay not stated
Similar roles pay $142.0k–205.6k/yr
Middle 50% of 46 listings that do state pay — Engineering · Senior · Eastern Europe · USD/year. This employer has published no salary; this is what comparable listings we hold disclose, never converted between currencies or periods. How this is calculated.
Skills named in the ad
Recognised terms only, from a fixed vocabulary — this is what CV matching compares against.
Carried by 1 source
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Recruitee employer's own board first seen 3h ago · last seen just now
The listing
Novakid is an online English platform for kids — 100,000+ students, 2,500+ teachers, 15+ countries. Live classes run around the clock across time zones, which sets the technical bar: low latency, high availability, and a backend that holds up at real scale.
We’ve built a working platform. The next chapter is making deliberate architectural choices about how it should evolve.
The role
We’re hiring a Principal Backend Engineer to take ownership of backend architecture as a hands-on technical leader. No direct reports. About half your time is in the code — reference implementations, critical components, refactors. The other half is the harder work: deciding what to build, what to buy, what to defer, and why.
Our backend today is a Python core (FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, Celery, Postgres, Redis), surrounded by services and event-driven flows, with a growing AI layer. It runs primarily on AWS, with GCP for data and AI workloads. There are real architectural questions to answer: how to evolve the monolith, how to set service boundaries, how to design for geo-distribution as we grow, and how to integrate AI without accumulating debt. We’re looking for someone who treats those questions seriously — researches before deciding, thinks in tradeoffs, writes things down.
What you’ll work on
Backend architecture standards and major technical decisions across teams
The path from monolith toward a more modular, service-oriented backend
Service blueprints: API conventions, EDA patterns, testing, observability, deployment
Cloud architecture across AWS (primary) and GCP, including multi-region and geo-distributed designs
High-load, real-time systems: live class infrastructure, latency budgets, caching, capacity
Buy vs. build vs. assemble — knowing when a managed service, a no-code tool (Retool, n8n), or an agentic-coding POC (Claude Code, Cursor) is the right call, and when it isn’t
Production code: components, refactors, POCs, and selected product-critical features
What we’re looking for
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); working knowledge of GCP a plus
Experience designing high-load, latency-sensitive, and geo-distributed systems
Pragmatic judgment on buy vs. build vs. assemble — managed services, no-code, and agentic tooling as first-class options, not shortcuts
A deliberate working style: you research, weigh tradeoffs, document decisions, and explain them clearly to engineers and non-engineers alike
Nice to have
LLM integrations in production (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google AI) — evaluation, cost, reliability
Active use of agentic coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor) as part of how you ship
EdTech or other high-scale consumer platforms
Stack
Python · FastAPI · SQLAlchemy · Celery · Postgres · Redis · Kubernetes (EKS, GKE) · AWS · GCP · SQS/SNS/EventBridge · Pub/Sub · OpenAI · Anthropic · Google AI
What we offer…
Fully remote work (core hours GMT+3).
A chance to shape the future of AI-driven education.
A fun, dynamic team that loves building innovative products.Unlimited holidays – because we trust you to deliver.
Bonuses and stock options – we grow together.