Senior Software Engineer | Backend

Meet DeepL. DeepL is a global AI product and research company focused on building secure, intelligent solutions to complex business problems. Over 200,000 business customers and millions of individuals across 228 global markets today trust DeepL's Language AI platform for human-like translation, improved writing and real-time voice translation. Building on a history of innovation, quality and security, DeepL continues to expand its offerings beyond the field of Language, including DeepL Agent - an autonomous AI assistant designed to transform the way businesses and knowledge workers get work done. Founded in 2017 by CEO Jarek Kutylowski, DeepL now has over 1,000 passionate employees and is supported by world-renowned investors including Benchmark, IVP, and Index Ventures. Our goal is to become the global leader in trusted, intelligent AI technology, building products that drive better communication, foster connections, and create a meaningful impact. To achieve this, we need talented people like you to join our journey.

What sets us apart is our blend of cutting-edge AI technology, meaningful work, and a culture where people truly thrive. We’re a team of innovators, researchers, and creators driven by a shared purpose to unlock human potential by making work simpler, smarter, and more connected. When we share what it’s like to work at DeepL, the reactions are overwhelmingly positive. This might be because of our technology that helps millions of people and businesses communicate and work better every day, or because of the trust, curiosity, and care that shape our culture. What we know for sure is this: being part of DeepL means joining a team dedicated to innovation, growth, and well-being.

DeepL is not just a translation tool; we are building the Operating System for Global Communication. We are the rare AI company that builds the entire stack in-house: from training next-gen LLMs on our own NVIDIA DGX SuperPODs to delivering real-time Language AI to over 100 million users and 100,000+ businesses globally. We are shifting gears. We are moving from "Software-First" to "Product-First." We don’t hire backend engineers just to build APIs or optimize database queries in isolation. We hire Missionaries—builders who obsess over system reliability, massive scale, and the business impact of their architectural choices. As a Senior Backend Engineer at DeepL, you will operate with the agency of a founder. Whether you are architecting our high-throughput billing engine, optimizing low-latency inference pipelines, or building the "nervous system" of our internal platform, you will own your domain end-to-end. You will join a high-performance culture that values shipping speed and system resilience over theoretical perfection.

Your responsibilities:

• Architect for Ambiguity & Scale: You will design distributed systems that can handle 10x growth. You make high-stakes technical decisions—choosing between eventual consistency vs. strong consistency, or monolith vs. microservices—often with incomplete information, and you own the consequences.
• Own Revenue-Critical Systems: You won’t just "implement endpoints." You will take full ownership of mission-critical services (e.g., Subscription Management, Identity, or API Gateways). You define the failure modes, the monitoring strategy, and the path to production.
• Bridge the Technical & Business Gap: You are bilingual in "Engineering" and "Business." You can translate complex backend constraints (like database locking strategies or latency costs) into business terms for Product Managers, ensuring we negotiate the right trade-offs to ship value fast.
• Drive Technical Pragmatism: You avoid "Resume-Driven Development." Whether working with our core stack (C#/.NET Core, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL) or introducing new tools, you prioritize maintainability and simplicity. You write code that the team can read and debug at 2 AM, two years from now.

Qualities we look for:

• A "Distributed Systems" Mindset: You understand the fallacies of distributed computing. You know how to design for failure, manage concurrency, and handle data consistency at scale. You think in terms of system boundaries and contracts, not just classes and functions.
• High Agency & Bias for Action: You don’t wait for permission or perfect specs. If you see a performance bottleneck, you profile it. If the architecture is blocking the product, you propose a refactor. You are comfortable unblocking yourself and the team.
• Data Modeling Mastery: You have strong opinions on data. You understand the trade-offs between SQL and NoSQL, how to model complex domain logic, and how to prevent data corruption in a high-volume environment.
• Product-Oriented Engineering: You care about why we are building this. You don’t just optimize for "clean code"; you optimize for user value. You are willing to take a pragmatic shortcut today if it means validating a product hypothesis tomorrow.
• AI-Native Velocity: You leverage AI-powered tools (like GitHub Copilot or Claude) to accelerate your velocity and eliminate repetitive toil. You use AI for boilerplate code, test generation, and debugging, allowing you to focus your cognitive energy on high-value architectural decisions and complex problem-solving.

A Note on Our Hiring Process: DeepL hires for the Company, not just a specific team. We operate a Unified Engineering Pipeline. If you pass our bar, we will match you to the highest-priority role that fits your skillset—whether that is in Core Product, Platform, Voice, or Enterprise. We prioritize "Missionaries" who want to solve the biggest problems, wherever they live in the stack.

What we offer:

• Diverse and internationally distributed team: joining our team means becoming part of a large, global community with people of more than 90 nationalities. We’re more than just colleagues; we’re a group of professionals with a shared mission to connect diverse cultures.
• Open communication, regular feedback: as a language-focused company, we value the importance of clear, honest communication. We value smooth collaboration, direct and actionable feedback, and believe that leading with empathy and growth mindset makes us better together.
• Hybrid work, flexible hours: we offer a hybrid work schedule, with team members coming into the office twice a week. This allows you to engage directly with your team and experience the unique energy of our workspace, while still enjoying the flexibility and comfort of working from home.
• Virtual Shares - An ownership mindset in every role. We believe everyone should share in our success, and that’s why every employee receives Virtual Shares, linking your contribution directly to DeepL’s growth and rewarding you with a stake in our future.
• Regular in-person team events: we bond over vibrant events that are as unique as our team, from local team and business unit gatherings, to new-joiner onboardings, to company-wide events that bring us all together–literally.
• Monthly full-day hacking sessions: every month, we have Hack Fridays, where you can spend your time diving into a project you’re passionate about and get the opportunity to work with other teams–we value your initiatives, impact, and creativity.
• 30 days of annual leave: we value your peace of mind. With 30 days off (excluding public holidays) and access to mental health resources, we make sure you’re as strong mentally as you are professionally.
• Competitive benefits: just as our team spans the globe, so does our benefits package. We’ve crafted it to reflect the diversity of our team and tailored it to align with your unique location, to ensure you feel supported every step of the way.

If this role and our mission resonate with you, but you’re hesitant because you don’t check all the boxes, don’t let that hold you back. At DeepL, it’s all about the value you bring and the growth we can foster together. Go ahead, apply—let’s discover your potential together. We can’t wait to meet you!

We are an equal opportunity employer. You are welcome at DeepL for who you are—we appreciate authenticity here. Our product is for everyone, and so is our workplace. The more voices we have represented and amplified in our business, the more we will all succeed, contribute, and think forward! So bring us your personal experience, your perspectives, and your background. It’s in our diversity that we will find the power to break down language barriers in the world.