Staff Backend Engineer (Scala)

Gen Digital
New York, NY
Hybrid

Who this role is best for

Best suited to experienced Scala engineers with a strong background in enterprise backend systems working in the financial technology domain.

Best fit for

  • Candidates with 8+ years of experience and a history of senior engineering leadership in distributed systems
    — “A minimum of 8+ years of experience in software engineering”
  • Individuals who have shaped architectural strategies and driven technical design in large-scale systems
    — “drive the technical design and delivery of complex software solutions that impact the entire organization”
  • Engineers with a proven track record of mentoring and influencing team practices through code reviews and technical proposals
    — “Mentor and guide technical growth of engineering talent”

Things to consider

  • The role demands a deep understanding of Scala and JVM ecosystems for both development and architecture
    — “Experience developing and testing in Scala or other JVM languages”
  • Candidates must be comfortable with extensive collaboration across engineering, product, and business teams
    — “Demonstrated success collaborating across engineering, product, and business functions to deliver functionality”

How to stand out

  • Highlight experience with Kafka and event streaming architecture in your resume and interviews
    — “Experience designing highly scalable event streaming architecture using Kafka/MSK or equivalent.”
  • Emphasize your role in defining architectural constraints and aligning them with long-term goals
    — “refine architectural constraints and requirements, ensuring alignment with both immediate needs and long-term goals”
  • Demonstrate your ability to lead through documentation and RFC contributions
    — “Contribute to our RFC process by writing technical proposals and providing feedback to others”
  • Showcase your PostgreSQL expertise and database optimization experience
    — “Optimize database schemas to support scalable, high-performance backend services”
  • Demonstrate your proficiency with AWS tools and cloud infrastructure design
    — “Expertise in AWS product and tools”
Pace · SteadyCollaboration · HighAutonomy · HighDecision Impact · Team

Derived from job-description analysis by Serendipath's career intelligence engine.

What success looks like

  • design and implement large-scale backend systems
  • optimize database schemas
  • mentor engineering talent
Typical background
software engineeringbackend developmentcloud computing

Skills & requirements

Required

Large-scale Backend Software SystemsAPI DesignDatabase Schema OptimizationTechnical DocumentationRFC ProcessTechnical MentorshipService-oriented ArchitectureRestful API DesignPostgreSQLAWS

Preferred

KubernetesDockerTerraformScala Ecosystem

Stack & domain

ScalaJVM LanguagesSoftware Design PatternsFunctional ProgrammingDatabase Schema DesignKafkaMSKPostgreSQLAWSDatadogKubernetesDockerTerraformLightbendSlickPlay/play JSONTypelevelHttp4sDoobie/skunkCirceCatsCats-effectDebeziumFinance

About the role

Original posting from Gen Digital via Ashby

Staff Backend Engineer (Scala)

Backend Core Enterprise

Engine by Gen collaborates with leading financial institutions to deliver the most comprehensive and personalized financial product offers to consumers. As a Staff Engineer on the Backend Core Enterprise team, you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping products that integrate seamlessly with existing features, data, and infrastructure across the organization. These API-driven solutions power internal systems and are packaged for delivery to our extensive partner network. The team’s mission is to amplify the impact of existing verticals while engineering industry-leading architecture designed for scale, speed, and innovation.

Get ready to shape the future of scalable, high-impact distributed systems. As a Staff Engineer in this role, you’ll drive the technical design and delivery of complex software solutions that impact the entire organization. By defining and building an internal software platform, you’ll empower teams to deliver predictable, high-quality features at scale. Collaborating with stakeholders and partners, you’ll refine architectural constraints and requirements, ensuring alignment with both immediate needs and long-term goals. Your expertise will guide the organization’s architectural strategy, and your influence will extend through design and code reviews, technical mentorship, and fostering a culture of excellence in hiring and innovation.

Day-to-day:

● Design and implement large-scale backend software systems creating new partner-facing and internal data-driven APIs.

● Review code with an emphasis on readability and maintainability

● Write API and technical documentation for services and new architecture.

● Optimize database schemas to support scalable, high-performance backend services.

● Contribute to our RFC process by writing technical proposals and providing feedback to others

● Mentor and guide technical growth of engineering talent

● Be a resource for solving hard, technical problems across teams and projects

● Stay up-to-date with the state of the software industry

Qualifications:

● A minimum of 8+ years of experience in software engineering

● 2+ years of proven success in senior engineering roles

● Demonstrated success collaborating across engineering, product, and business functions to deliver functionality

● Meticulous attention to detail in reviewing others' and your own work

● Experience developing and testing in Scala or other JVM languages

● Solid understanding of software design patterns, functional programming, and database schema design

● Experience designing highly scalable event streaming architecture using Kafka/MSK or equivalent.

● Experience with service-oriented architecture and RESTful API design

● Expertise in PostgreSQL

● Expertise in AWS product and tools

● Knowledge of monitoring and observability tools, including Datadog or equivalent

Good to have, not required:

● Experience in customer-facing roles

● Familiar with modern DevOps tooling

○ Kubernetes/Docker

○ Terraform

● Familiar with Scala and the Lightbend and Typelevel ecosystems

○ Lightbend: Slick, Play/Play JSON

○ Typelevel: http4s, doobie/skunk, circe, cats, cats-effect

○ Debezium

Source: Gen Digital careers (Ashby)

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