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For Companies At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and optimise backend systems for a high-throughput reporting platform.
- Company: INDY powers cinema operations globally, handling millions of tickets annually.
- Benefits: Enjoy remote work flexibility and a collaborative team environment.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on moviegoers while owning your projects from start to finish.
- Qualifications: 5+ years in backend systems with strong Ruby/Rails expertise required.
- Other info: Work closely with founders and enjoy a tight-knit team culture.
The predicted salary is between 48000 - 84000 £ per year.
Location: Remote (Global)
Team Size: ≈ 10 engineers
Core Stack: Ruby on Rails (API-only), Sidekiq, MySQL, AWS (EC2, RDS, EFS), Highcharts.js (data consumers)
About INDY
INDY powers every operational layer of a movie theater—from ticket sales and concessions to scheduling, accounting, and real-time business intelligence. Our platform handles tens of millions of tickets a year across cinemas worldwide, yet we remain a nimble team where each engineer’s work is felt immediately in theaters on six continents.
Why This Role Exists
Our home-grown reporting platform is the analytical backbone of INDY. It decomposes incoming queries into thousands of parallel Sidekiq jobs (hourly → daily → weekly → monthly roll-ups) and serves the results back to cinema managers in seconds. As volume soars, we need a backend-focused engineer to:
- Own and harden this distributed reporting engine.
- Design data pipelines that can ingest years of transactional data and still answer ad-hoc questions quickly.
- You will partner with—but not be accountable for—front-end engineers who wire these APIs into Vue-based dashboards.
What You’ll Do
- Architect & Scale
- Profile, partition, and optimize multi-terabyte MySQL schemas.
- Tune Sidekiq queues, worker pools, and EC2 autoscaling groups for bursty loads.
- Refactor long-running jobs into idempotent, parallelizable units.
- Maintain Data Integrity & Observability
- Implement validation, audit trails, and automated backfills.
- Instrument metrics/alerting around throughput, latency, and cost.
- Expand Administrative Workflows
- Expose clean GraphQL/REST contracts that power accounting tools for film bookings, revenue splits, and studio payouts.
- Introduce domain-specific abstractions (DSLs, helpers) so other engineers can add new report types rapidly.
- Collaborate Across Functions
- Work with infra engineers on Terraform-managed AWS resources.
- Pair with front-end devs to ensure APIs are ergonomic and secure.
- Advise product and finance teams on data-model trade-offs.
What We’re Looking For
Must-Have
- 5+ yrs building high-throughput backend systems
- Deep Ruby/Rails & ActiveRecord expertise
- Hands-on MySQL tuning (indexes, partitioning, query plans)
- Proven record scaling background-job frameworks (Sidekiq, Resque, Celery, etc.)
- AWS production experience (EC2, RDS, IAM, VPC)
Nice-to-Have
- Experience with BI/reporting engines or OLAP stores
- Exposure to ClickHouse/Redshift/BigQuery
- Event-driven or stream processing (Kafka, Kinesis)
- Familiarity with data-viz pipelines (we use Highcharts.js)
- Contributions to OSS or tech-blog posts on performance
What Success Looks Like (6-12 Months)
- Daily report-generation latency cut by 50 % while data volume doubles.
- Zero-downtime schema migrations and automated backfill strategy in place.
- First phase of studio-settlement APIs shipped and adopted by finance ops.
- Comprehensive dashboards/alerts proactively surface scaling limits before customers notice.
Why INDY Rocks
- Massive Visible Impact – Your optimizations ripple out to millions of moviegoers.
- Start-to-Finish Ownership – No layers of bureaucracy; ship, measure, iterate.
- Technically Spicy – Distributed computing meets real-world financial correctness.
- Tight-Knit Crew – Collaborate directly with founders and domain experts.
Senior Backend Engineer – Distributed Reporting & Data Infrastructure employer: INDY
Contact Detail:
INDY Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Backend Engineer – Distributed Reporting & Data Infrastructure
✨Tip Number 1
Familiarise yourself with the core technologies mentioned in the job description, especially Ruby on Rails and MySQL. Consider building a small project or contributing to an open-source project that uses these technologies to demonstrate your hands-on experience.
✨Tip Number 2
Network with current or former employees of INDY on platforms like LinkedIn. Engaging in conversations about their experiences can provide valuable insights into the company culture and expectations, which you can leverage during interviews.
✨Tip Number 3
Prepare to discuss specific examples of how you've optimised backend systems in the past. Be ready to explain your thought process and the impact of your work, as this role requires a strong focus on scaling and performance.
✨Tip Number 4
Stay updated on the latest trends in distributed computing and data infrastructure. Being knowledgeable about new tools and methodologies can set you apart and show your commitment to continuous learning, which is highly valued at INDY.
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Backend Engineer – Distributed Reporting & Data Infrastructure
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your CV: Make sure your CV highlights your experience with backend systems, particularly in Ruby on Rails and MySQL. Emphasise any relevant projects or roles that demonstrate your ability to handle high-throughput systems and distributed reporting.
Craft a Compelling Cover Letter: In your cover letter, explain why you're passionate about the role at INDY. Mention specific aspects of their platform and how your skills align with their needs, such as your experience with Sidekiq or AWS.
Showcase Relevant Projects: If you have worked on similar projects, include links to your GitHub or portfolio. Highlight any contributions to open-source projects or tech blogs that showcase your expertise in backend engineering and performance optimisation.
Prepare for Technical Questions: Anticipate technical questions related to backend architecture, data integrity, and performance tuning. Be ready to discuss your approach to scaling systems and optimising database queries, as these are crucial for the role.
How to prepare for a job interview at INDY
✨Showcase Your Technical Expertise
Be prepared to discuss your experience with Ruby on Rails and MySQL in detail. Highlight specific projects where you've optimised backend systems or scaled databases, as this role requires a deep understanding of these technologies.
✨Demonstrate Problem-Solving Skills
Expect technical questions that assess your ability to architect and scale systems. Prepare to walk through your thought process on how you would tackle challenges like optimising Sidekiq queues or implementing data integrity measures.
✨Understand the Business Impact
INDY values engineers who can connect their work to real-world outcomes. Be ready to discuss how your contributions can improve operational efficiency and enhance the user experience for cinema managers.
✨Prepare for Collaborative Scenarios
Since this role involves working closely with front-end engineers and other teams, think of examples where you've successfully collaborated across functions. Emphasise your communication skills and ability to work in a team-oriented environment.
