Backend Engineer II

The Role: How You'll Make an Impact

Team: Backend Engineering | Reports to: Director, Backend & DevOps 

You'll build, ship, and operate the backend behind Hatch's mobile apps and IoT devices. That means Java and Python REST APIs, AWS IoT, Lambda, and the monitoring, alerting, and DevOps practices that keep millions of devices humming in real homes.

You’re a great fit if you thrive in environments of rapid learning and delivery.  You’re self-motivated and have demonstrated strong ownership and self-direction.  You strive to understand the business of what we are trying to accomplish and push engineering solutions to provide customer value.  We're a small team, and AI-assisted development is core to how we work. We expect you to ramp up quickly, use AI every day, and deliver steadily in the areas you own.

You'll work with Mobile, Embedded, and Product to build features end to end, from cloud APIs to the devices themselves. You'll contribute to system design and help shape how the backend grows.

What You'll Do

First 90 Days: Learn & Contribute

• Learn our backend architecture and tools through team walkthroughs and your own exploration, and share what you notice and what you'd ask
• Learn what drives the business and use it to weigh tradeoffs in your own work
• Ship well-scoped backend features and fixes in our Spring Boot + Hibernate stack, using AI to speed up delivery
• Join architecture and design discussions, ask questions, and contribute ideas
• Build working relationships with peers across Mobile, Embedded, and Product

First 6 Months: Deliver Independently

• Learn the end-to-end flow of the backend areas you work in, including how they interact with the app and device firmware
• Be the main driver for medium-sized features, from design through deployment
• Own a component within a core area such as IoT device communication, registration/auth flows, device routine scheduling, or backend support for mobile app features
• Troubleshoot and fix production issues in your areas, and escalate early when a problem is bigger than it looks
• Add or improve monitoring and alerting using Graphite, ELK, or other internal tools

First Year: Own an Area

• Own a backend area and handle most questions and issues in it without escalating
• Lead the design and delivery of a large project, with guidance from senior engineers
• Find and make improvements to reliability, test coverage, and developer experience
• Help onboard new teammates, and pass on what you've learned through code reviews and documentation

What You'll Bring

The Essentials 

• 3-5+ years of backend engineering experience, with strong skills in JVM languages. Spring Boot, Groovy and Python backend experience is a plus.
• Experience building and maintaining RESTful JSON APIs in production
• Technical skills: Distributed Systems, JVM languages, Python, AWS, MySQL, Infra and Monitoring Tools (Ansible, Jenkins, ELK. Graphite, Docker, etc.)
• Automate, Automate, Automate: You know how to write automated tests and can explain how and where to use them (and not). You believe in Continuous Deployment and understand testing's crucial role.
• Desire for elegance and simplicity: You write code that is simple, readable, and easy to maintain. "Do the simplest thing that can possibly work" is not just a slogan here; it's a way of life.
• Judgment and humility: You notice when you're going down a rabbit hole and know when to raise concerns. Asking for help is a strength, not a weakness.
• Unafraid of new, unknown tech: You dive into new tech and paradigms that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable with eager glee.  You’ve picked up multiple languages over your career and stay curious about new tools, frameworks, and technologies.
• Collaborative spirit: You make everyone around you better 
• Clear communication: You can explain complex things simply

Bonus Points • Ansible-based DevOps pipelines • Connected Hardware Experience • MQTT

The Mindset We Love 

• Customer mindset: You stay laser-focused on driving value for our customers
• Builder mentality: You thrive in a rapid growth environment just on the edge of chaos
• Humans over Process: We prioritize face to face resolution rather than async processes that drag on
• Pick Up a Shovel 🌿 (you help where needed - even out of your area of expertise)
• Feedback is a Gift 🎁 (you have experience gracefully receiving and giving feedback)
• Learn Faster 👟 (ship small features iteratively, learn, and commit to the next step)

How We Work: Customer-Obsessed Culture

We're pioneering how modern teams build with a customer focus:

• Tools that amplify you: Access to best-in-class product analytics, feedback loops, and rapid prototyping tools.
• Time to explore: Dedicated time for deep-dives into customer pain points and experimentation with solutions.
• Write less boilerplate: Spend your time shipping high-impact, customer-facing features, not writing repetitive code.
• Continuous learning: Regular cross-functional workshops, customer interview shadowing, and "wow, look what we built for them" moments.

The result? You'll do the best work of your career, faster than you thought possible.