Senior Software Engineer, Backend Platform, Ruby on Rails

About the position

At Handshake, our platform connects students with life-changing career opportunities. Behind our mission stands a robust engineering ecosystem that needs your expertise to evolve and scale. As a Senior Software Engineer on the Backend Platform team, you'll play a key role in simplifying backend complexity at Handshake, empowering product teams to deliver value faster and better. You'll build reusable backend services, improve developer workflows, and create paved paths that help product teams focus on product development while ensuring scalability, reliability, and consistency. This is a high-impact role where you'll influence backend best practices, shape platform engineering efforts, and drive architectural improvements that enhance the efficiency and productivity of our engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement scalable backend services and developer tooling that significantly boost product team velocity and output quality.
• Shape best practices for Ruby on Rails development at Handshake, establishing standards that ensure high-quality, maintainable, and well-tested code.
• Create intuitive paved paths that guide product teams toward optimal technical decisions while maintaining consistency in service and API architecture.
• Lead technical initiatives such as evolving our GraphQL ecosystem, strategically reducing technical debt, and driving backend performance optimization.
• Improve developer experience by refining local development environments, streamlining CI pipelines, and enhancing self-service tooling.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Frontend Platform, Product Engineering, and Infrastructure to drive alignment and deliver cohesive technical solutions.
• Mentor and support other engineers through thoughtful code reviews, pair programming, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience with Ruby on Rails at an expert level, including deep understanding of framework internals, performance optimization, and scaling patterns.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including TDD, contract testing, decoupling, and clean code practices that you've applied at scale.
• Experience designing, building, and maintaining GraphQL APIs.
• Demonstrated expertise with Elasticsearch implementation, query optimization, and integration with Rails applications.
• Experience implementing advanced caching strategies (Redis) and designing resilient background job systems (Sidekiq).
• A customer-first mindset with examples of how you've improved developer experience and productivity through platform engineering.
• Established history of elevating team standards through code reviews, pair programming, and technical mentorship.
• Practical knowledge of CI best practices that measurably enhance developer efficiency and code quality.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with MonoRepo architecture and implementing effective workflows within large codebases.
• Deep understanding of PostgreSQL optimization, including query performance tuning and schema design.
• Implementation experience with Event-Driven and Service-Oriented Architecture at scale.
• Experience with GoLang microservices.
• Working knowledge of GCP infrastructure and implementing security best practices in cloud environments.

Benefits

• Equity and ownership in a fast-growing company.
• 16 Weeks of paid parental leave for birth giving parents & 10 weeks of paid parental leave for non-birth giving parents.
• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision policies including LGBTQ+ Coverage.
• Resources for Mental Health Assistance, Employee Assistance Programs and counseling support.
• $500 home office stipend for you to spend during your first 3 months.
• Generous learning & development opportunities and an annual stipend for skill growth.
• Financial coaching through Origin.
• Monthly internet stipend and a brand new MacBook.
• Monthly commuter stipend for office-based employees.
• Free lunch provided twice a week across all offices.
• Referral bonus for bringing great talent to Handshake.
• 401k Match: Handshake offers a dollar-for-dollar match on 1% of deferred salary, up to a maximum of $1,200 per year.
• Flexible time off policy, 8 standardized holidays, and 2 additional days of flexible holiday time off.
• Partnership with Milk Stork for lactation support.
• Pension Scheme for UK employees with contributions based on 5% of salary.
• Up to 25 days of vacation for UK employees.
• 25 days of annual leave + 5 days of a winter #ShakeBreak for Germany employees.
• Urban sports club membership for Germany employees.