Staff Backend Engineer

Summary

Join roadsurfer as their Staff Backend Engineer and play a pivotal role in building their new mobile app. You will architect and implement critical backend systems, lead technical strategy for customer-facing products, and co-own architecture reviews. Drive continuous improvement in development workflows, mentor engineers, and collaborate with cross-functional teams. This role requires deep experience with PHP, Symfony, and backend system design, as well as proficiency in designing REST APIs and working with relational databases. A strategic mindset and leadership experience are essential. Roadsurfer offers various benefits, including flexible work arrangements, personal development support, a camper budget, job bike, discounts, and a fun office environment.

Requirements

• Deep experience with PHP, Symfony, and backend system design
• Proficiency in designing REST APIs and working with relational databases like MySQL
• A strong foundation in clean code principles (SOLID, KISS) and a commitment to building well-tested, reliable software
• Proven experience building authentication systems, API gateways, or scalable mobile-first backends
• A strategic mindset and leadership experience—able to align technical decisions with long-term product goals
• Proven experience writing clear, impactful technical documents that drive decisions and alignment
• Knowledge of best practices in security
• Fluency in English and a collaborative mindset that thrives in agile, cross-functional teams

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement critical backend systems to power our new mobile app—including unified authentication and mobile-friendly APIs
• Lead the technical strategy for customer facing products, potentially restructured service boundaries
• Co-own our architecture reviews, helping to identify risks, shape service design, and define technical priorities
• Drive continuous improvement in our development workflows—from tooling and CI/CD pipelines to engineering practices—optimizing for both delivery speed and product quality
• Mentor engineers and support decentralized technical decision-making across the Seamless Experience stream
• Collaborate with product, QA, design, DevOps and data to deliver customer impact while safeguarding backend health and performance
• Contribute to a culture of blameless postmortems, thoughtful trade-offs, and sustainable progress

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with Docker, Kubernetes, and AWS is a plus
• Bonus: you've worked in an environment that values architecture reviews, incident response, or observability as part of engineering maturity

Benefits

• TEAM SPIRIT & TEAM EVENTS: Look forward to a collegial atmosphere with flat hierarchies, lots of fun and great team spirit, as well as regular team events such as joint sports sessions, pizza & beer evenings, etc
• FLEX WORK & WORKATION: You are flexible in terms of working hours. Our Flex Work Policy enables you to work fully remote from Spain or Germany and work from abroad in Europe for one month per year
• PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: We support your personal and professional development through an individual Growth Plan and our Inhouse Academy
• CAMPER BUDGET: You get an annual camper budget to experience the #happyroadsurfing lifestyle for yourself
• JOB BIKE: Stay fit with our job bike offer
• DISCOUNTS: Use our Corporate Benefits Platform, the Travel Industry Card, and Family & Friends Discounts
• THE PLACE TO BE: Look forward to a beautiful, bright office with everything your heart desires, like table tennis and table football. You can also enjoy our weekly breakfast and lunch specials