Backend Engineer

Build the services and data flows that keep menus, baskets and restaurant orders correct and dependable.

The job

You will work on the systems behind an order: checking availability, validating prices, recording state changes and making information available to the right restaurant. These workflows must behave sensibly when requests are repeated, a service is slow or several updates arrive together. You will collaborate with frontend, payments and integrations engineers to make complex operational behaviour understandable through well-defined interfaces and useful diagnostic information.

What you would be doing

• Design APIs for order creation, availability, fulfilment status and partner operations.
• Model order lifecycles with clear rules for allowed transitions and concurrent updates.
• Use transactions, constraints and idempotency to preserve correctness under retries.
• Optimise PostgreSQL queries and indexes using measured performance evidence.
• Implement tenant-aware authorisation and validation at service boundaries.
• Create integration tests for important success, failure and recovery paths.
• Write operational documentation and investigate service issues alongside other engineers.

What we are looking for

• Production backend development experience with TypeScript, Node.js or a comparable stack.
• Strong SQL skills and understanding of relational database design.
• Experience designing APIs and handling validation, authentication and authorisation.
• Understanding of transactions, concurrency and reliable processing of repeated requests.
• Ability to explain service behaviour and debug problems across multiple components.

Useful, but not essential

• Experience with ordering, booking, inventory or other transactional systems.
• Familiarity with event-driven processing and asynchronous jobs.
• Experience with PostgreSQL row-level security or multi-tenant data access.

Tools you might use

• TypeScript
• Node.js
• PostgreSQL
• Drizzle
• REST APIs
• Structured logging

Your first 90 days

• Days 1–30Map the order lifecycle, run the service locally and deliver a small API improvement.
• Days 31–60Own a backend change with clear contracts, integration tests and migration planning.
• Days 61–90Release an improvement to correctness or performance and document how it is monitored.

The practical bits

• 3 days per week in the Derby office and 2 days working remotely within the UK.
• 37.5 hours per week, Monday–Friday. Core collaboration hours are agreed with the team.
• Occasional planned team or customer visits; approved expenses are reimbursed.

What we offer

• 30 days of annual leave plus public holidays
• A company pension contribution
• A £1,000 annual learning budget for courses, conferences or professional development
• A company laptop and role-appropriate equipment; engineering roles include a development setup
• Flexible start and finish times, agreed with your team around customer and collaboration needs
• Wellbeing support and regular development conversations with your manager
• Reimbursement of approved business travel and customer-visit expenses