At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and optimise backend services for AI-powered financial workflows.
- Company: Join Translucent, a fast-moving startup revolutionising accounting with AI.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, equity stake, and remote work flexibility.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in a dynamic environment while shaping the future of finance.
- Qualifications: 5+ years backend engineering experience, strong SQL skills, and programming expertise.
- Other info: Collaborate closely with a small team and influence product direction.
The predicted salary is between 36000 - 60000 £ per year.
Location: Remote. Compensation: Competitive salary + meaningful equity stake. Visa sponsorship: Not available.
About Translucent
Translucent is building the future of accounting with AI. We are reimagining how companies handle their finances by making AI a trusted teammate for finance teams: safe, transparent, and always with humans in control. Our platform already processes Xero and QuickBooks data at the transaction level for thousands of companies across multiple entities. Customers rely daily on our consolidation, intercompany, and search tools - and their feedback drives our roadmap. We are a small, fast-moving team with high standards and big ambitions. If you enjoy working close to customers, shipping quickly, and building something truly different, you’ll fit right in.
Role overview
We are looking for an experienced Backend Engineer who loves working with data, building robust services, and optimising distributed systems. You will work across ingestion pipelines, API layers, and query engines, shaping how our platform stores, processes, and serves financial data. This is a hands-on role where you will make architectural decisions, solve scaling challenges, and design backend systems that form the foundation for AI-powered financial workflows.
What you will do
- Design, implement, and optimise backend services that power our APIs, integrations, and developer tools.
- Own database performance and reliability: schema design, indexing, query optimisation, and scaling strategies for PostgreSQL and ClickHouse.
- Build and maintain high-throughput ingestion pipelines with Kafka, transforming raw accounting data into well-structured, queryable formats.
- Develop data access APIs that make financial data securely and efficiently available to both internal services and external developers.
- Improve observability across the stack: logging, metrics, tracing, and alerting for ingestion pipelines and backend services.
- Collaborate with engineers, product, and domain experts to turn customer workflows into reliable backend systems.
- Contribute to architectural decisions across event-driven workflows, sync/transform services, indexing strategies, and search infrastructure.
- Support AI-powered workflows by ensuring data pipelines are structured, reliable, and optimised for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), schema validation, and downstream agent evaluation.
- Help design guardrails and evaluation hooks for systems where agents or customers write data back, ensuring correctness, performance, and safety.
- Explore new data architectures such as graph databases to model complex financial relationships and support emerging AI workflows.
- Work in lockstep with AI engineers to evolve Translucent into an AI-first company.
What you will bring
- 5+ years of backend engineering experience, ideally in data-intensive or high-scale systems.
- Strong skills in SQL and database design (PostgreSQL preferred), with proven experience in optimisation and scaling.
- Solid programming skills in Python, Go, Kotlin or a similar backend language.
- Experience designing and maintaining production APIs (REST/gRPC/tRPC).
- Comfort with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or similar) and containerised environments (Docker, Kubernetes).
- Understanding of data pipelines and ETL processes, working with both structured and semi-structured data.
- Exposure to AI-powered data frameworks and infra such as vector databases (Weaviate, Qdrant, Pinecone), graph databases (Neo4j, Memgraph), or model serving/routing systems (vLLM, LiteLLM).
- Familiarity with agent orchestration frameworks (LangGraph, Mastra) or AI observability tools (W&B Traces, Arize, OpenLLMetry).
- Experience building data pipelines optimised for AI workflows, e.g. embedding search, feature stores, or schema-validated outputs.
- Clear, pragmatic communication and a collaborative approach.
- An interest in joining a small, fast-moving startup where you can influence product direction and engineering culture.
Nice to have
- Experience with event-driven architectures and streaming systems (Kafka, Pub/Sub, etc.).
- Familiarity with ClickHouse, ElasticSearch, or vector databases for high-performance queries and indexing.
- Background in accounting, finance, or enterprise SaaS.
- Exposure to AI/ML-powered applications, LLM frameworks, or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
Senior Backend Engineer (Remote) in Waltham Cross employer: Translucent
Contact Detail:
Translucent Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Backend Engineer (Remote) in Waltham Cross
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to folks in your industry on LinkedIn or at meetups. A friendly chat can lead to opportunities that aren’t even advertised yet.
✨Tip Number 2
Show off your skills! Create a portfolio or GitHub repo showcasing your projects. This gives potential employers a taste of what you can do, especially for a tech role like Senior Backend Engineer.
✨Tip Number 3
Prepare for interviews by practising common technical questions and coding challenges. We all know that nailing the interview is key, so get comfortable with the tools and languages mentioned in the job description.
✨Tip Number 4
Don’t forget to apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen by the right people. Plus, it shows you’re genuinely interested in joining our team.
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Backend Engineer (Remote) in Waltham Cross
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your Application: Make sure to customise your CV and cover letter for the Senior Backend Engineer role. Highlight your experience with data-intensive systems and backend technologies that match what we're looking for. This shows us you’re genuinely interested in the position!
Showcase Your Skills: Don’t just list your skills; demonstrate them! Include specific examples of projects where you've optimised databases or built robust APIs. We love seeing how you've tackled challenges in your previous roles, especially if they relate to AI or financial data.
Be Clear and Concise: When writing your application, keep it straightforward. Use clear language and avoid jargon unless it's relevant. We appreciate a well-structured application that gets straight to the point, making it easy for us to see your qualifications.
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to apply directly through our website. It’s the best way for us to receive your application and ensures you’re considered for the role. Plus, it gives you a chance to explore more about our company and culture!
How to prepare for a job interview at Translucent
✨Know Your Tech Stack
Make sure you’re well-versed in the technologies mentioned in the job description, especially PostgreSQL and Kafka. Brush up on your SQL skills and be ready to discuss how you've optimised databases or built APIs in the past.
✨Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills
Prepare to discuss specific challenges you've faced in backend engineering, particularly around scaling and data pipelines. Use examples that highlight your ability to make architectural decisions and improve system performance.
✨Understand the Company’s Vision
Familiarise yourself with Translucent's mission of integrating AI into finance. Be ready to share your thoughts on how AI can enhance backend systems and contribute to financial workflows, showing that you align with their goals.
✨Ask Insightful Questions
Prepare thoughtful questions about the team dynamics, product direction, and how they incorporate customer feedback into their development process. This shows your genuine interest in the role and helps you gauge if it’s the right fit for you.