Backend Engineer, Staff Level

Hello! :DWe Are Zeals - “Designing conversations. Driving conversions.”Zeals is not another chatbot. Our automated chat solution and conversational technology are changing the way consumers purchase or act online. Zeals converts customers who appear "unengaged" to become "valuable" through designed chat on Messaging Apps. Using AI-powered, human-designed conversation flows across chat platforms, Zeals enables brands to build personalized, automated conversations with their consumers and develop a deeper understanding of their preferences while creating a delightful, seamless shopping experience. Our last 3 years have been phenomenal. We have captured the heart of many businesses in Japan, with over 480 enterprises relying on our chat commerce offering to boost their mobile business.The goal is simple: to “revolutionize hospitality on the Internet”, unlocking digital customer service experiences that were limited to physical stores previously.Just Getting Started…With more than 480 enterprise companies worldwide already utilizing our product, we are perfectly poised to seize market share and fuel exponential growth in the US market, with an eye on global expansion. Investors have taken note of our potential, leading us to recently secure nearly $40 million in funding, backed by Salesforce Ventures.As a Staff Backend Engineer at Zeals, you won’t just write code — you will own systems end-to-end, shape our architectural strategy, and influence technical direction across teams. You will be a key technical leader in our backend domain, responsible for designing scalable, fault-tolerant systems that power mission-critical services and accelerate the impact of our conversational commerce platform.This role is not about following roadmaps — it's about creating them. You’ll work across teams to raise the engineering bar, mentor senior engineers, and drive strategic decisions that shape our product and infrastructure for years to come.What You’ll DoDrive architecture and design of complex, distributed backend systems with a focus on scalability, reliability, and performanceLead initiatives to modernize legacy systems and migrate to robust, decoupled services using Golang, gRPC, and RESTOwn high-stakes technical decisions, balancing trade-offs and setting standards for software design across teamsEnsure best practices in clean code, DDD, testing, observability, and documentation are deeply embedded in the development lifecycleCollaborate with engineering leadership, product managers, and stakeholders to align backend capabilities with business prioritiesFoster a culture of technical excellence through mentorship, knowledge sharing, and collaborative problem solvingWhen required, participate in the on-call rotation and act as a technical escalation point for critical incidentsWhat You'll Need Proficiency in development flow based on git and GitHub5+ years of experience in Software Engineering or a similar role, with preferably experience in GolangStrong sense of testing, including unit tests and integration testsAbility to communicate recommendations for improvements on current systems, processes, and services as neededExhibit a strong ability to adapt in a dynamic and ever-changing environmentAbility to solve problems, especially to identify the source of the problem, and create and test solutionsProven team-leading experience with the ability to mentor and guide team membersBonus PointsHands-on experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and cloud-native infrastructure (preferably GCP)Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (e.g., CircleCI) and engineering operations tooling (e.g., Jira)Experience working with polyglot environments (e.g., Python, Ruby, Node.js)Japanese language proficiency is a plus, but not required Don’t just take our word for it Zeals has received the LinkedIn Top Startups award twice in a row. We believe this is a testament to our growth and our ability to attract great talents–who could potentially be your colleague!Our Tech StackBackend Languages: Go, Python, ElixirFrontend Languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (TypeScript, React.js, Recoil, Zod, Tanstack, etc)Mobile Languages: NoneInfrastructure: Google Cloud Platform, GCP Pub/Sub, Kubernetes, MongoDB, MySQL, Postgres, BigQuery, Elasticsearch, QdrantConfiguration management tool: TerraformCI/CD: Github Actions, ArgoCD, CircleCIMonitoring: Grafana, GCP Cloud Monitoring, GCP Logging, GCP Cloud Trace, OpsgenieData: BigQuery, Parquet, Spark, Scala, Python, dbtKnowledge Tools: ConfluenceOther: GitHub / Slack / JiraProcess: ScrumReady to roll up our sleevesWe're obsessed with bringing hospitality to everyone – whether it's our customers or you! You’re an individual with unique needs, and while we may not have ping-pong tables or all-you-can-drink espresso bars to offer, we promise you a once-in-a-lifetime experience and co-workers you’ll be proud to brag about to your friends, family, or anyone you meet the next time you go out! As an employer, we're ready to roll up our sleeves and change the status quo if it means making your experience better.Salary Range : competitivePerformance review: twice a yearHolidays: 10 days of annual leave in the first year, weekends off, national holidays, summer and winter breaks, and 5 refreshment leave days per year.Visa support: We sponsor visas for the right candidates.Flexible working: Highly flexible, remote-first organization (in Japan), Interim work from overseasHousing allowance (within 1.5KM away from office)Club activity allowanceTeam building allowance and Lunch allowanceZeals Bar (bi-monthly free flow beer party)