Senior Backend Engineer (Contractor)

Job description

SENIOR BACKEND ENGINEER (CONTRACTOR) Location: Remote — Eastern Europe Engagement: Contractor Experience: Senior, 5+ years Time zone: Must consistently overlap with U.S. working hours ABOUT HAULER HERO Hauler Hero builds the operating system for residential and commercial waste haulers, including dispatch, routing, billing, payments, customer management, reporting, and the driver app that ties field operations together. Our customers are private hauler owners, operators, and municipal waste leaders running essential services every day. Many are still managing their businesses through paper tickets, whiteboards, spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and legacy software. The result is missed revenue, messy routes, limited visibility, and too much time spent fighting fires instead of growing the business. Today, we serve 240+ haulers across the country and are scaling quickly. We are a well-funded, fast-moving vertical SaaS company bringing modern software to an essential industry where the customer need is clear and the opportunity is large. ROLE SUMMARY We are hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to design, build, and evolve the core backend services that power Hauler Hero’s platform. This is a 100% hands-on senior individual contributor role focused on building scalable, reliable, and maintainable systems used daily by waste hauling companies across North America. You will work closely with Product, Frontend, and Platform Engineering to ship features, improve system robustness, and continuously refactor existing services as the platform scales. This role requires strong technical judgment, comfort with ambiguity, and clear communication in a remote environment. AI-FIRST BACKEND ENGINEERING We are intentionally building an AI-assisted engineering organization. AI tools are part of the daily workflow, not optional. What this means in practice: - Daily use of tools such as Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot - AI-assisted implementation of Spring Boot services, APIs, database migrations, and business logic - AI-assisted test generation, refactoring suggestions, and code review support - AI-assisted log analysis, debugging, and issue investigation - You remain accountable for reviewing, validating, and owning everything AI produces Speed matters, but correctness, performance, and maintainability matter more. This role is not a fit for engineers who are resistant to AI-assisted development or who rely on AI output without understanding the underlying system. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES CORE BACKEND DEVELOPMENT - Design, build, and maintain robust backend service layers - Write clean, testable, high-performance code in Java and/or Kotlin using Spring Boot - Design and implement APIs that scale with real production workloads - Refactor and extend existing services to improve reliability and maintainability - Create reusable components and patterns that improve team velocity DATA AND PERFORMANCE - Design and optimize relational schemas in PostgreSQL - Write and tune performant SQL queries for large data volumes - Validate that database access patterns scale under load - Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across services COLLABORATION AND DELIVERY - Work as part of a cross-functional Agile or Scrum team - Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and architectural discussions - Collaborate with Frontend and Product teams on feature development - Debug and resolve production issues as they arise - Contribute to improving engineering processes and practices MENTORSHIP AND CULTURE - Mentor engineers through code reviews and technical discussions - Contribute to a culture of learning, iteration, and constructive feedback - Share context proactively to avoid knowledge silos REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS EXPERIENCE - 5+ years of experience building production backend systems - Experience designing and operating systems with distributed data and meaningful scale - Experience working in Agile or Scrum environments - Strong experience with Git and GitHub workflows CORE TECHNOLOGIES - Strong proficiency with Spring Boot using Java and/or Kotlin - Deep experience with relational databases, especially PostgreSQL - Experience building and maintaining production APIs - Experience refactoring toward or within microservice architectures SKILLS - Ability to translate product requirements into technical solutions - Strong problem-decomposition and debugging skills - Solid computer science fundamentals and engineering judgment - Clear written and verbal English communication skills NICE TO HAVE - Experience with Node.js or React - Messaging and communication platforms such as SendGrid or Twilio - Event-driven architectures - Geospatial or location-based systems - Payments or financial integrations - Background in logistics, fintech, or B2B SaaS OUR TECH STACK - Backend: Java, Kotlin, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL - Cloud: Google Cloud Platform, including GKE, Cloud Run, and Cloud SQL - Caching and Data: Redis, Firestore - Frontend: React - CI/CD: Cloud Build, GitHub Actions - Monitoring: New Relic, Google Operations WHAT WE LOOK FOR OWNERSHIP AND JUDGMENT - You take problems through to resolution - You balance pragmatism with quality - You identify and eliminate single points of failure COMMUNICATION - Clear, proactive written communication in English - Comfort working asynchronously across time zones - Willingness to surface risks and tradeoffs early MINDSET - Curious, growth-oriented, and adaptable - Comfortable with ambiguity and iteration - Willing to refactor continuously as systems evolve WHAT SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE - Backend services are reliable, scalable, and maintainable - Features ship consistently with minimal rework - Production issues are diagnosable and resolved quickly - Database and API performance scales with usage - Strong trust from Frontend, Product, and Platform teams CONTRACTOR AND LOCATION NOTES - This is a contractor role, not full-time employment - Senior-level ownership and reliability are expected - This role is open to candidates located in Eastern Europe - Consistent overlap with U.S. working hours is required