Who we are looking for:

Recrucial’s client is looking for a Senior Core Backend Engineer who can take ownership of backend systems, infrastructure, architecture, and production readiness in a fast-moving early-stage environment.

The ideal candidate is not only a strong backend developer, but also a builder: someone who is comfortable with ambiguity, makes independent technical decisions, moves fast, and understands how backend architecture directly impacts product quality, scalability, trust, and user experience.

This role is best suited for an engineer who enjoys building from scratch, shaping technical standards, and working closely with founders and product stakeholders rather than simply executing predefined tickets.

About the company:

The company is a newly funded, seed-stage, AI-native startup building a next-generation consumer experience around collectibles and trading cards.

The company was founded by serial entrepreneurs with a strong track record of building and scaling successful companies, including a gaming unicorn. The team is now forming its founding engineering group — the people who will shape the product, the engineering culture, the architecture, and the technical standards from the earliest stage.

The environment is high-ownership, low-bureaucracy, and execution-focused. Engineers are expected to think independently, contribute to product direction, and help define how the company builds.

What the company does:

The company is building a mobile-first product for collectors that connects digital pack-opening experiences with real, physical trading cards.

The product allows users to choose a pack, open it digitally, reveal real authenticated trading cards or graded slabs, and then decide whether to sell, ship, or store those cards securely. The experience sits at the intersection of:

• collectibles and trading cards;
• mobile gaming-style pack opening;
• real-world physical ownership;
• card authentication and vault storage;
• marketplace, resale, and instant liquidity mechanics;
• insured shipping and user trust infrastructure;
• scalable consumer mobile experiences.

The product is not just a digital collectible simulator. Each pull is connected to real physical inventory, which creates a complex backend challenge around reliability, transactions, inventory, storage, user flows, and operational integrity.

The project you will be involved in:

You will work on the core backend platform behind a consumer product where users interact with digital packs that represent real physical trading cards.

The backend must support critical product flows such as pack selection, digital reveal logic, authenticated physical inventory, user-owned assets, instant buyback options, vault storage, shipment requests, and integrations with the mobile experience.

Because the company is still at an early stage, this is a greenfield/founding-engineering opportunity. You will not be joining a mature backend organization with every decision already made. Instead, you will help define how the system is designed, deployed, monitored, scaled, and secured from day one.

What you will do:

You will own backend development across the core product experience and play a major role in infrastructure and operational design.

Your responsibilities will include:

• designing and building backend services, APIs, data pipelines, and microservices;
• defining system architecture, storage strategies, service boundaries, and operational patterns;
• building scalable backend foundations for mobile consumer flows;
• owning cloud infrastructure, especially around AWS setup, networking, scaling, production readiness, and security;
• setting up and improving CI/CD, deployments, observability, monitoring, infrastructure-as-code, and environment configuration;
• collaborating with mobile, product, and founders to define backend capabilities and product-facing APIs;
• making technical decisions around distributed systems, event-driven flows, data modeling, and service reliability;
• helping establish engineering standards, review practices, and backend culture from the earliest stage;
• influencing product direction through strong technical judgment and practical execution.

Project goals and outcomes:

The goal is to build a reliable, scalable, and secure backend foundation for a high-ownership consumer product in the collectibles and trading-card space.

Key outcomes include:

• a robust backend architecture that can support fast product iteration;
• scalable APIs and services for mobile experiences;
• reliable handling of asset-related, inventory-related, and transaction-related flows;
• production-grade infrastructure with strong observability and deployment practices;
• secure cloud setup with clear operational ownership;
• a backend platform that can grow with the product, user base, and business model;
• engineering standards that future team members can build on.

This role will directly affect how quickly the company can launch, iterate, scale, and create user trust.

Team and structure:

You will be part of the founding engineering team and will work directly with the founders, product stakeholders, and other core engineering team members.

The team is small, hands-on, and close to the product. There are no heavy layers of management or long decision chains. Engineers are expected to be active contributors to product and architecture discussions, not only implementation owners.

You will collaborate closely with mobile engineering to define mobile-friendly APIs, data contracts, and backend capabilities that support a polished user experience.

Technology stack and tools:

The exact language stack is flexible, but the backend role requires strong production backend experience and cloud infrastructure ownership.

The expected technical environment includes:

• backend services and APIs;
• microservices and distributed systems;
• REST APIs;
• event-driven flows;
• data modeling and storage design;
• AWS or similar cloud environments;
• Docker and containers;
• Kubernetes;
• CI/CD pipelines;
• infrastructure-as-code;
• monitoring, observability, and production alerting;
• environment configuration and deployment tooling;
• security and production infrastructure practices.

Experience with Node.js is considered a plus, but strong backend engineering judgment is more important than a single programming language.

Key requirements and expectations:

We are looking for someone who has:

• 7+ years of experience building production backend systems;
• strong experience with AWS or a similar cloud environment;
• solid understanding of distributed systems, APIs, event-driven architecture, and data modeling;
• experience with CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, environment configuration, deployments, and monitoring;
• ability to design systems from scratch and make pragmatic architectural decisions;
• comfort with infrastructure ownership, not only application-level development;
• strong product intuition and ability to understand why backend decisions matter for users;
• ability to work in an early-stage startup with ambiguity, speed, and limited process;
• self-sufficiency, resourcefulness, and a fast-learning mindset;
• clear communication and willingness to collaborate directly with founders and product.

This role is not ideal for someone who needs a highly structured corporate environment, mature processes, or narrow task ownership.

What we offer:

This is an opportunity to join at a stage where your work will have visible impact.

Our client offers:

• a founding-level backend role with high ownership;
• the chance to shape backend architecture and infrastructure from the ground up;
• direct collaboration with founders and product decision-makers;
• influence over technical standards, culture, and engineering practices;
• a fast execution environment with low bureaucracy;
• competitive compensation;
• exposure to a product combining consumer mobile, collectibles, marketplace mechanics, real-world assets, and infrastructure challenges.

Hiring process:

The selection process is designed to evaluate both hands-on engineering ability and architectural thinking.

The expected process includes:

1. HR or AI prescreening call A first introductory conversation focused on understanding your motivation, organizational details, and relevant experience that demonstrates your suitability for the role.

2. Coding interview — 45–60 minutes A hands-on development session focused on writing clean, functional code in real time.

3. System Design interview — 45–60 minutes An architecture-focused interview covering scalability, trade-offs, and technical decision-making.

4. Final founder conversation A short meeting with the founders to discuss product vision, company direction, and mutual fit.