Staff Backend Engineer

Job Description

Location: London or Remote (within 2 hours of GMT)

Raft is an intelligent logistics platform transforming the freight and customs industry through automation and advanced technologies. As a fast-scaling, UK-based tech company with global reach, we’re pioneering solutions that empower freight forwarders and customs brokers to operate at new levels of efficiency and precision. Fuelled by our Series B funding from renowned investors like Eight Roads, Bessemer Venture Partners, Episode 1, and Dynamo Ventures, we're poised for major growth and innovation.

The Role: As a Staff Backend Engineer at Raft, you’ll be pivotal in shaping the architecture and capabilities of our platform to support mission-critical logistics features. This is not a traditional engineering role—it's a high-impact opportunity where you’ll design robust cloud infrastructure, develop scalable APIs, and enhance our data pipeline ecosystem. You will be instrumental in creating highly resilient systems, enabling features such as multi-user access and real-time updates, and setting new standards for data integrity, security, and performance. In addition to building advanced software, you’ll play a strategic role in driving technical decision-making and mentoring our growing engineering team. This role is for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, ambitious environment and is ready to make an outsized impact on a product used across the globe.

What You'll Do:

• Architect, build, and maintain scalable, cloud-based infrastructure.
• Design, implement, and maintain sophisticated databases, APIs, and data pipelines, with responsibility for the underlying infrastructure.
• Drive the evolution of platform features that require complex engineering solutions, including multi-user access and real-time updates.
• Collaborate across functions to ensure our platform is secure, reliable, and optimized for performance.

Requirements

We Specifically Want Someone Who:

• Brings 7+ years of hands-on experience in backend development with a strong focus on Python, supplemented by experience in other programming languages.
• Has deep expertise in designing and maintaining scalable databases (preferably PostgreSQL) and understands the latest trends in database technology.
• Is proficient with FastAPI/Starlette and can demonstrate experience in building scalable APIs with Python.
• Has a solid track record in multi-cloud environments and understands how to architect and implement software libraries that thrive in distributed, multi-cloud settings.
• Can design and implement a sophisticated logging, monitoring, and alerting infrastructure to ensure high availability and quick troubleshooting.
• Understands and implements best practices in security and data privacy, with a proven ability to secure complex data flows.
• Has extensive experience with containerized tools like Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes, Helm, and understands the intricacies of deploying these in production.

Apply Because You Want to...

• Join a company on the leading edge of logistics technology, competing with industry giants while leveraging cutting-edge Machine Learning and backend engineering.
• Work in a product-driven environment where your contributions shape real-world solutions for a global customer base.
• Collaborate with stakeholders across industries and continents, gaining unparalleled exposure to the logistics and automation sectors.
• Thrive in a high-energy, growth-focused environment that pushes you to expand your technical and strategic skill sets.
• Be part of a diverse, inclusive, and multi-cultural team where innovation and continuous improvement are celebrated.