Principal Full Stack Engineer

Join the revolution in hospitality tech!

Liven is a leading global data, technology, and customer experience provider for the hospitality industry. From humble beginnings, we have grown to serve over 6,000 venues and millions of diners across Australia, the USA, and Southeast Asia, processing over 120 million transactions worth more than $3 billion (AUD) annually.

At Liven, our platform is built to help hospitality businesses save more and work smarter by seamlessly integrating every aspect of their operations — from ordering and payments to back-of-house management.

Driven by a deep passion for the hospitality industry, we continuously innovate to elevate the experience for both venues and their guests. Our solutions are powered by AI-enriched insights and automated workflows, enabling smarter decision-making and smoother operations at scale.

We’re proud to be an AI-first organisation. By automating repetitive tasks, we free up space for our teams — and our customers — to focus on what truly matters: solving complex problems, delighting guests, and driving meaningful growth.
Key Milestones:

• Expansion: Acquired OrderUp, Abacus, Zeemart, Copper and Nomnie forming Asia Pacific’s largest end-to-end group in hospitality technology.
• Global Reach: Headquartered across major cities including Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney, Singapore, Bali, Jakarta, New York, and India.

If you're someone who thrives on creativity, bold thinking, and using technology to make things better, faster, and smarter — you’ll feel right at home here.

Here’s a quick glimpse of Liven: 

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• You can visit LinkedIn 
• You can Visit Blog
• Acquisition News

About the role
As a Principal Full Stack Engineer, you’ll play a pivotal role in leading the architecture, development, and maintenance of our most critical systems — including loyalty engines, coupon frameworks, and integrated QSR applications.

This is a high-impact, leadership-level role requiring deep technical expertise, a hands-on approach, and strong collaboration with stakeholders across engineering, product, and design. You'll also help explore and operationalize AI-powered tools to accelerate our product roadmap.
You’ll work primarily during Australian business hours (AEST/AEDT) with some flexibility. We have core collaboration hours where we expect overlap with the engineering and product teams across APAC and SEA, and occasional synchronous meetings to keep projects moving smoothly.

What you'll do

• Architect and deliver complex systems for loyalty, discounting, and customer rewards — from backend logic and APIs to seamless integrations with web and mobile apps.
• Build and evolve scalable APIs using Node.js, Nest.js, and Express.js (TypeScript), enabling dynamic and rule-based engines for core product features.
• Oversee the development and performance of Flutter-based applications used by large QSR brands, ensuring stability, scalability, and user-centric design.
• Design robust relational data models using PostgreSQL, with efficient caching via Redis to support real-time performance.
• Build secure, performant GraphQL APIs with Apollo, enabling flexible client-side data access across platforms.
• Deploy, monitor, and scale services in Google Cloud Platform (GCP), leveraging automation and modern DevOps practices.
• Set the standard for clean, maintainable, and testable code. Lead code reviews and refactor legacy systems where necessary.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and engineers to shape technical direction, define requirements, and deliver outcomes.
• Drive the adoption of AI-powered tools to accelerate development, automate issue resolution, and improve engineering efficiency.

Qualifications

• 7–10+ years of experience as a full-stack engineer, with a strong emphasis on backend development and scalable system architecture.
• Proven track record of leading complex technical projects end-to-end, from design to deployment and iteration.
• Deep expertise in:
• • Node.js, Nest.js, Express.js (TypeScript)
  • GraphQL and Apollo
  • PostgreSQL (relational data modelling) and Redis (caching)
  • Google Cloud Platform (GCP) for deployment, scaling, and monitoring
• Experience with Flutter or the ability to quickly manage and adapt to Flutter-based codebases.
• Domain experience in building loyalty platforms, discounting engines, or other rule-driven systems is highly desirable.
• A solid understanding of performance optimization, cloud infrastructure, and system reliability at scale.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to work cross-functionally across product, design, and engineering teams.
• Full-time availability during Australian business hours (AEST) to collaborate effectively with our core team and partners.

Good to Have

• Experience working with QSRs, retail systems, or other transaction-heavy domains.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and observability tools (e.g., Stackdriver, Datadog, Sentry).
• Exposure to AI/ML tools or automation frameworks for accelerating development workflows.
• Experience integrating with third-party platforms such as POS systems, payment gateways, or marketing automation tools.
• Strong product mindset with a focus on usability, performance, and reliability.
• Contributions to open-source projects or active participation in tech communities.
• Prior experience in remote-first teams, especially across time zones