• – 5–8+ years of backend engineering in production systems — the right profile depends on depth of architecture experience, not years alone
• – Event Sourcing and CQRS in practice — you have built it, not just read about it
• – Domain-Driven Design — bounded contexts, aggregates, domain events
• – PostgreSQL — schema design, query optimisation, pgvector
• – AWS or comparable hyperscaler — production deployment, IAM, VPC, managed services
• – Experience in regulated environments — fintech, banking, or insurance
• – Senior enough to make architectural decisions independently and coordinate a freelance engineer
• – CET timezone — daily overlap for peer review and fast alignment is required
• What interests us additionally
• – Go, TypeScript, or Java — we care about architecture patterns (Event Sourcing, CQRS, DDD), not the language on your CV. Experience with Go or willingness to work in Go is a plus.
• – Familiarity with MiFID II, WpIG, or FINMA regulatory requirements
• – Experience with graph-based workflow engines or saga patterns
• – German is a plus, not a requirement
• You have proven you can build complex systems. But you are not looking for the next job at a scale-up with 200 engineers where your work disappears into a microservice pipeline. You want to set the architecture, own the platform, and know that what you build is in production and making a real difference.
• An early stage does not put you off — it attracts you, because you know the most important decisions are being made now. And you understand that equity in a platform that is positioning to be the market leader in a structurally underserved segment can be worth more than the next salary band.