Staff Backend Engineer

As a staff backend engineer you’ll play a key role in shaping the services that power our mobile and web platforms, directly impacting the experience of students, educators, and partners around the world. You will work to ensure our different clients are serviced consistently across the API and that future endpoints fit well into the overall system architecture.

In this role, you won’t just write code — you’ll help shape the future of our platform. You’ll work closely with talented teammates across engineering, product, and design to define and implement robust, scalable APIs and services. Your work will touch every layer of our backend architecture — from routing critical traffic and managing assessment data to optimizing integrations for enterprise partners and crafting clean, well-tested solutions to complex technical challenges.

As a staff member of the team, you’ll also help guide engineering direction through mentorship, thoughtful code review, and active participation in technical design sessions. You’ll have opportunities to lead kickoffs, advocate for best practices, and contribute to long-term strategic decisions — including evaluating and prototyping next-gen server infrastructure in modern languages like Go or Rust.

This is an ideal role for someone who is self motivated, thrives on thoughtful problem-solving, enjoys turning product requirements into elegant backend solutions and is motivated by the impact of their work on learners across the globe.

• Design, build, and maintain robust backend services in a TypeScript/Node.js environment, ensuring reliability, performance, and comprehensive test coverage

• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, design, and engineering teams to develop APIs and infrastructure that support new features across mobile and web platforms

• Lead and contribute to technical planning, helping to define scope, evaluate complexity, and architect solutions that balance short-term needs with long-term scalability

• Work closely with fellow engineers to align backend and frontend efforts, solve challenging problems, and ensure seamless cross-platform functionality

• Monitor and maintain system health, including optimizing MongoDB database performance, debugging production issues, and coordinating with cloud infrastructure providers

• Champion engineering excellence by evolving our internal standards, mentoring peers, and fostering a strong culture of code quality, collaboration, and continuous learning

We’re looking for someone who has the following:

• 8+ years of professional backend experience, a majority w/ TypeScript and NodeJS

• Proven ability to design and maintain RESTful APIs

• Strong focus on code quality, testing, and documentation

• Experience with MongoDB or other NoSQL databases

• Experience delivering solutions in other languages, particularly Go or Rust

• Experience optimizing database performance (indexing, query tuning)

• Experience managing CI and deployment pipelines

• Experience working on projects from ideation and inception through to release and maintenance

• Prior involvement in mentoring or engineering leadership

And exhibits the following qualities:

• An engineer’s mindset - writing code that will stand the test of time and address the core problems, not just the symptoms

• A desire to collaborate with the team, knowledge share, mentor, and work together to find optimal solutions

• Comfortable being nimble and experimental throughout the course of product development; recognizing tradeoffs, making decisions and sharing the impact with stakeholders

• Love for continued learning individually and as a team, as well as making education more accessible for others

Pocket Prep is a leading mobile and web-based learning platform offering efficient and affordable study solutions for professional certification and licensure. We believe that education should be within everyone’s reach. High-stakes exams are often a stressful and expensive barrier to career advancement - Pocket Prep strives to prepare our members to pass with confidence.

We care about people passing exams because we’ve been there. Co-founders Ken Gillette and Peter Murphy faced expensive, high-stakes tests for career-promoting professional credentials while they were co-workers at Lockheed Martin. Like tens of thousands of other Americans, they shelled out hundreds of dollars to register and buy the materials they thought would improve their chances of passing. After hauling textbooks, flashcards, and study guides to costly test prep classes, they founded Pocket Prep in 2011 to help people more effectively and inexpensively prepare for important assessments.

Some of our employee benefits include:

• Stability: We're 12+ years old, 100% profitable without investor backing and we continue to have year-over-year growth.

• Work/Life Balance: Freedom to live your life while accomplishing something awesome for everyone in education. Flexible PTO and a 3-week company-wide holiday break from mid-December through the New Year.

• Competitive Compensation: Generous profit-sharing program and total compensation that targets the 75th percentile.

• 100% Healthcare: We cover all of our employees' healthcare premiums because we are invested in your well-being. We also cover 80% of dependents.

• Hybrid Flexibility: You can work where and when you are most effective. We have an office in downtown Durham, North Carolina, and are supportive of hybrid work options.

• Give Back: We are active participants in our communities through volunteer partnerships with local nonprofits. We offer VTO (volunteer time off) for independent engagement with your community.