Senior Backend Integration Engineer

Get started on an exciting career at Element! Element employees make a difference in the lives of others every day. We are re-defining the fleet management industry to be people first, then business – delivering on our promise of a superior client experience. This takes hard work and innovation, and we need more like-minded people on our team. About the Role We’re looking for a technical leader to join our team as Senior Backend Integration Engineer. In this role, you will design, build, and maintain the API gateway and integration layer that connect Element Pay services and external systems. You will be accountable for secure, reliable, and scalable service integration, with primary ownership of authentication and authorization, cross-service API delegation, caching, external notification infrastructure, and the engineering standards that support safe operation and evolution of these capabilities. You will also set technical direction for the integration domain through design documentation, architecture discussions, code review, production support, incident follow-up, and mentoring. What You’ll Do Architect and build the API gateway, including routing, schema and request validation, rate limiting, and edge policies, to provide a secure, reliable, and scalable entry point to the Element Pay platform. Design and maintain the integration layer and service interfaces, including GraphQL schemas, gRPC contracts, and service-to-service delegation patterns, to enable consistent and dependable communication across internal services and third-party systems. Own authentication and authorization capabilities, including token issuance and validation, session handling, scoped credentials, SSO integrations, and identity propagation, to protect platform access and support secure enterprise integration. Design and operate caching and outbound notification capabilities, including cache invalidation, webhooks, retry and backoff policies, dead-letter handling, and delivery guarantees, to improve performance and provide resilient external event delivery. Build automated unit, integration, and contract testing and instrument services with metrics, traces, logs, and alerts, to maintain change safety, observability, performance, and production reliability. Set technical direction for the integration domain through design documentation, architecture discussions, code review, production support, incident follow-up, and mentoring, to strengthen engineering practices and continuously improve platform resilience. Owns assigned systems and technical outcomes end to end and provides technical guidance to other engineers through design review, code review, pairing, documentation, and mentoring. Anticipates and resolves non-routine production and integration problems, establishes reusable patterns, and improves engineering approaches to authentication, service communication, caching, notification delivery, testing, and observability. Basic Qualifications 6+ years of professional backend engineering experience, including significant experience with distributed systems or platform/infrastructure engineering. Strong proficiency in TypeScript (Node.js) and/or Go, with depth in at least one and ability to work effectively in the other. Production experience with GraphQL and/or gRPC, including schema or service-contract design, performance, versioning, and backward compatibility. Hands-on experience designing, building, or operating API gateways, service meshes, backend-for-frontend layers, or comparable integration infrastructure. Practical experience with authentication and authorization technologies and patterns, including OAuth 2.0, OIDC, JWTs, mTLS, and API key management. Experience with asynchronous and event-driven architecture using message queues, pub/sub, or event-streaming technologies. Preferred Qualifications Education: College/University degree preferred. Experience with federated GraphQL or gRPC gateway patterns. Experience building partner- or customer-facing APIs, developer documentation, SDKs, or sandbox environments. Experience designing webhook delivery at scale, including signing, replay protection, ordering, and partner-side troubleshooting. Familiarity with Protocol Buffers and API gateway technologies such as Envoy, Kong, Traefik, or Kubernetes Gateway API. Experience with observability platforms and standards such as OpenTelemetry, Datadog, Prometheus, or Grafana. Location : San Francisco Compensation The hiring base salary range for this position is $132,500- $182,160 annually. This range represents the Company's good-faith estimate of the expected base salary at the time of posting. Salary ranges may vary based on the geographic location where the work is performed. The salary range listed in this posting applies only to the location identified. Actual compensation will be determined based on several factors, including the successful candidate's qualifications, knowledge, skills, experience, internal pay equity, and relevant market data. In addition to base salary, eligible employees may participate in annual incentive programs, including bonuses, commissions, or other incentive compensation, as applicable to the role. Element also offers a comprehensive benefits package, which may include health insurance, tuition reimbursement, and retirement savings plans. What’s in it for You • A culture of innovation, empowerment, decision-making, and accountability • Comprehensive health and welfare benefits that serve the needs of you and your family and foster a culture of wellness • Additional benefits and amenities, including paid time-off programs (vacation, sick leave, and holidays) Applicants will be required to undergo a background check only if and after a conditional offer of employment has been extended. Element Fleet Management and its wholly owned subsidiaries are an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. We are pleased to consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, genetic information, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, marital status, family status, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, physical or mental disability, veteran status, military obligations or any other characteristic protected by federal, state and local laws. Disability-related accommodations during the application and interview process are available upon request. Should you require an accommodation with our hiring process please send an email to or call (800) 665-9744. Element Fleet Management also uses AI-assisted tools to help screen and assess applications. These tools analyze information you provide (for example, your rēsumē and screening responses) to identify job-related skills, qualifications, and experience. AI outputs do not by themselves determine whether you advance or receive an offer – they assist recruiters and hiring managers. Final hiring decisions are made by people. Know Your Rights: Workplace discrimination is illegal