Senior Backend Software Engineer - UK, Remote in London

Eequ is a marketplace and booking platform for any learning that takes place outside of school or university. Our vision goes far beyond that. We believe there’s an alternate future for education - one that is radically decentralised. Decentralised education means an infinite number of learning experiences can be offered, tried, changed, and reinvented continually. It allows for infinite philosophies, pedagogies, learning styles, and interests. It empowers the smallest initiatives with the same tools as the largest. It fosters diversity, agility, and innovation. Our product is a tool to describe ideas for teaching, searching for mentors, coordinating groups, and keeping records.

As we enter a key growth phase, we’re looking for a backend developer to strengthen our existing systems and help us scale with confidence.

• Has deep experience with scaling challenges
• Can take the lead for the database layer and data-intensive modules
• Can dictate the system design and architecture for scaling and performance
• Experienced with distributed systems and microservices

• Re-architecting parts of our monolithic backend to reduce tight coupling into scalable components
• Leading a migration to Terraform
• Refactoring our questionnaire module to remove performance bottlenecks and simplify its data model
• Designing a caching layer for our most resource-intensive queries

We operate as a distributed team, but collaboration remains central. You’ll regularly work with our CEO and design team, with front-end developers to shape APIs, and with other backend engineers to review code and architecture.

• Proven experience building production applications using NestJS
• Strong skills in relational database design and optimisation
• Comfortable managing and deploying on AWS, with awareness of cloud infrastructure best practices
• Methodical in researching and implementing solutions when tackling unfamiliar problems
• Takes pride in clean, maintainable, high-quality code that solves real problems effectively

We’re a highly productive remote team where communication is everything. That means more than just replying to Slack – it means explaining your thinking clearly and asking good questions to surface challenges early.

We’re looking for someone who:

• Writes and speaks with clarity and precision
• Is comfortable jumping on a whiteboard to diagram and explain ideas
• Can explain technical concepts to both engineers and non-technical teammates
• Is fluent in English to confidently join client calls on topics like security, infrastructure, or product requests
• Develops Request for Comments (RFC) documents to propose new functionalities

This role isn’t for someone looking to coast or divide attention across multiple commitments. We move quickly and rely on each other to stay focused and dependable. Team cohesion is important to us. We value people who bring others together, improve communication across functions, and promote optimism and courage. We care as much about the content of your character as the content of your code reviews.

• Backend stack: Strong production experience with NestJS and Node.js
• Database: Deep MySQL knowledge — schema design, query optimisation, indexing, migrations. (TypeORM familiarity a bonus)
• AWS: Confident managing RDS, S3, CloudWatch, EC2
• Architecture: Expert with design patterns, caching strategies, microservice boundaries, scaling strategies
• Testing: Solid experience with unit, integration and performance tests

To apply, please complete our Application Typeform Questionnaire – it helps us respond promptly and consistently. If selected, the interview will be a live, practical session based on real-world engineering challenges. We’ll walk through a couple of problems recently tackled by our team and ask how you’d approach them to help us understand your thinking, judgement, and communication.

Eequ is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from all backgrounds and walks of life. However, we are only able to consider candidates based in the UK or EEA with an existing right to work.