Backend Engineer

• Instead of task lists, anchor on ownership: • Own meaningful problem spaces end-to-end, from discovery through delivery and iteration • Design and evolve systems that support safe, scalable, AI-augmented development • Use data and experimentation to validate whether solutions actually work • Collaborate cross-functionally to balance member impact, clinical constraints, and technical tradeoffs • Shape how we work—our tools, processes, and culture • What We Look For: • We explicitly assess for empowerment: • You start with "why" before diving into "how" • You're energized by ambiguity and collaborative problem-shaping • You use AI to amplify your judgment and move faster on what matters • You think in systems and anticipate second-order effects • You want to own outcomes, not just ship features • Build scalable, performant, secure, and well-tested APIs. • Maintain and evolve our entirely serverless AWS-based architecture using Node.js and TypeScript. • Contribute to the development of an event-driven system, owning core feature implementation and refactoring critical functionality as needed. • Design and optimize MySQL databases at scale, including schema design and query performance improvements. • Manage and integrate third-party APIs, ensuring reliability, security, and maintainability. • Implement best practices for code quality, testing, and deployment automation in a collaborative agile environment. • Partner with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions. • We're Looking For You To Bring: • 4+ years of professional experience as a backend engineer. • Extensive experience with Node.js and TypeScript. • Proven track record with event-driven architectures. • Years of working with SQL, including schema design, optimization, and scaling. • Strong AWS expertise, including API Gateway, SNS, SQS, Lambda, Cognito, EC2, RDS, S3, CloudWatch, and VPC. • Experience integrating and managing third-party APIs in production environments. • Genuine curiosity about emerging technologies, including AI, and a proactive mindset toward exploring how they can enhance work, problem-solving, and innovation at Pelago. • Familiarity with testing frameworks and experience writing unit and integration tests. • Based in London or within commuting distance (2 days/week in-office). • Experience with NoSQL databases. • Infrastructure provisioning using Terraform. • Experience scaling AWS environments in high-growth contexts. • Knowledge of serverless architecture trade-offs and benefits. • API security best practices.