Job Summary: We are looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to design and develop modern, scalable digital solutions with impact in education, taking ownership of distributed backend systems. Key Highlights: 1. Design and develop modern, scalable digital solutions 2. Take real ownership of backend systems within a distributed ecosystem 3. Collaborate on architecture, data flows, reliability, and security Would you like to design and develop modern, scalable, high-impact digital solutions — both to enhance the learning experience of hundreds of thousands of students and to optimize internal processes at an education company experiencing rapid growth? We’re looking for you at **Innovamat**! **About Us** ------------------ Innovamat is an educational organization focused on mathematics learning. Its mission is to improve how this subject is taught by providing resources, teacher training, and research to the educational community. Founded in 2017 in Barcelona, Innovamat works with 27,000 teachers from over 2,600 educational centers across Spain, the United States, Mexico, Italy, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Peru — enabling more than 600,000 students to learn mathematics through deep conceptual understanding and competency development. ### **Who Are We Looking For?** At Innovamat, we seek a **Senior Backend Engineer** who wants to take real ownership of backend systems within a distributed ecosystem — directly impacting education. This role is **primarily backend**: your main impact will be in designing and implementing APIs, as well as in architecture, data flows, asynchrony, reliability, security, and performance. However, all members of the Web Engineering team currently have — or aspire to have — **full-stack impact**, so you’ll also contribute to frontend and product work. We seek someone who views backend as an **engineering discipline**, participating in end-to-end development of complex applications. We’re looking for someone who has: * At least **5+ years of professional software development experience** in a similar role. * Ability to **design complete solutions**, from architecture through delivery. * Passion for **clean, scalable, and maintainable code**. * Experience and mindset of an early adopter in using AI agents for development. * Autonomy, execution capability, and **technical leadership with sound judgment**. * Strong **sense of ownership** over the product and deep concern for quality. * A mentoring mindset — committed to elevating the team’s level and promoting best practices. * Enthusiasm for technical debate and tackling complex challenges. ### **What Do We Have at Innovamat?** You’ll work in a non-trivial ecosystem: * **Mobile applications** (for schools and individuals) with over 600K active users. * A **web platform** supporting teachers daily with over 5,000 educational resources. * A **distributed ecosystem of APIs and services** connecting all our applications. * **Large-scale data**, feeding our adaptive learning engine. * A modern technical environment with automated deployments and continuous improvement. The **cognitive load is high**: multiple contexts, cross-cutting initiatives, and decisions with systemic impact. Precisely for that reason, the challenge is compelling. ### **How Will You Make an Impact?** * Designing and developing backend services and APIs (REST/GraphQL) with system-level vision. * Working primarily with **PHP (Symfony)** and **Python**. * Making decisions on architecture, data models, asynchrony, and consistency. * Ensuring **performance, security, and reliability** in real production environments. * Actively participating in incident resolution and structural improvements. * Supporting the team through **mentorship, technical debate, and rigorous code reviews**. * Collaborating closely with product, frontend, data, and infrastructure teams. * Participating in infrastructure and deployment decisions. * Evaluating the operational cost (FinOps) impact of backend decisions in production. You’ll be an active part of Innovamat’s technical core — building robust, scalable backend systems, assuming real production responsibility, and helping the team make better decisions every day. ### **️ Tech Stack & Tools:** Our stack evolves, but today we work with: * **Backend languages**: PHP (Symfony), Python * **Frontend**: React, TypeScript, Design Tokens. * **APIs**: REST, GraphQL * **Persistence & Data**: SQL and NoSQL databases * **Testing**: behat, behave, PHPUnit, unittest. * **Architecture**: distributed services, messaging, asynchronous jobs, and batch processes * **Infrastructure**: AWS * **Containers & Orchestration**: Docker, Kubernetes * **Infrastructure as Code**: Terraform * **CI/CD**: automated pipelines integrated into the development workflow * **Methodologies**: Agile / Scrum, code reviews, continuous improvement * **Productivity & AI**: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, etc. We don’t expect mastery of everything, but we do expect strong technical judgment to work effectively with this stack — making informed decisions and understanding **what it means to operate real systems**. ### **We Especially Value If…** * You’ve led cross-cutting technical decisions. * You have a product mindset and care about deeply understanding and solving user problems. * You can analyze, diagnose, and optimize overall backend system performance — including databases, queries, data models, and execution flows. * You’ve worked with asynchronous systems, messaging services, and external integrations. * You’re motivated to raise the team’s technical bar — even if that means challenging the status quo. *And even more so if…* * You have ***familiarity with data systems and data engineering***, even without coming from a specialized role. * You’ve collaborated closely with ***Data or ML teams***, understanding their needs and translating requirements into robust, scalable backend systems. * You’re comfortable designing or maintaining ***data pipelines***, batch processes, or integrations that feed models or analytical systems. * You understand the challenges of ***data quality, traceability, reproducibility, and cost*** in data-driven systems. *Experience in data engineering amplifies the impact of this role — bridging backend with the data and learning systems that drive product growth.* ### **What Can You Expect From Innovamat?** * Real societal impact — improving education. * A small, autonomous, and demanding team grounded in technical rigor. * Genuine autonomy and influence. * Interesting, non-artificial problems. * Permanent contract and flexible working hours. * **Hybrid work model (1–2 days in the office).** * Space to grow as an engineer. If technology, educational impact, and real technical challenges motivate you… **We want to meet you!**