Sr. Backend Engineer

Project A is a leading European early-stage investor with €1.2b AUM, championing ambitious tech founders from idea to scale. We provide pre-seed and seed capital to firms shaping Europe's future across key themes including Fintech, European Resilience, Global Supply Chains, and the Future of Autonomous Work. Our portfolio features category leaders such as Trade Republic, Sennder, Zepz, and Quantum Systems. In addition, our founder-led Studio actively partners with ventures like 11x, ARX Robotics, and Enapi to shape and validate bold ideas from day zero.

About the Job

We’re looking for an experienced Senior Backend Engineer (m/f/d) to be a technical anchor across the team at our Portfolio Company. 

You will operate with a high degree of autonomy while staying deeply embedded in collaborative engineering culture.

Tech Stack: Java 21 (Spring Boot 3), Python, LangGraph, LLM APIs (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini), PostgreSQL, Kinesis, AWS, Terraform, GitHub Actions, Node.js, TypeScript, Next.js, React.

Join the Project A portoflio: A next-generation supply chain platform, the company is redefining how one of the world’s largest industries sources, distributes, and finances materials. Engineered to unlock the full potential of global trade, it harnesses agentic AI and workflow automation to provide seamless, high-efficiency access to premium materials at scale. Since its commercial rollout, the platform has fueled exponential growth, optimizing procurement for thousands of businesses while setting new benchmarks for speed, transparency, and efficiency. Its competitive edge lies in full digitization and AI-driven supply chain management automation, eliminating inefficiencies and creating a direct, intelligent bridge between suppliers and buyers. With a team of 80+ FTEs across Europe (Berlin HQ), China, and India, the company is rapidly scaling toward profitability, driving triple-digit million GMV, and setting new industry standards in autonomous, AI-powered supply chain orchestration.

Please note that this position is based in Berlin with an immediate start date.

In this role, you’ll:

• Take ownership of complex backend systems from design through production — including architecture, implementation, and long-term maintenance
• Lead technical discussions, drive engineering decisions, and document trade-offs clearly for the team
• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers through code reviews, pairing sessions, and structured feedback
• Identify systemic weaknesses in our infrastructure, propose improvements, and execute on them with minimal direction
• Collaborate across engineering, product, and data to align technical direction with business goals
• Drive improvements to observability, reliability, and performance across our backend stack
• Contribute to hiring by participating in technical interviews and helping define the engineering bar

Your Profile

• 7+ years of backend engineering experience, with a track record of owning critical systems in production
• Deep expertise in Java (Spring Boot) and strong familiarity with Python; comfortable navigating a polyglot codebase
• Proven experience designing distributed systems — event-driven architecture, microservices, data pipelines
• Strong command of PostgreSQL and experience working with cloud-native infrastructure on AWS
• Someone who has been through hypergrowth or scale challenges and has the scars and instincts to show for it
• A multiplier: you make the engineers around you better through your presence, feedback, and technical clarity
• Comfortable operating in ambiguity — you can shape requirements, not just execute on them

Please note that we are looking for support in the Berlin office of our portfolio company.

Benefits and Perks

• Fulfil a role with entrepreneurial freedom and take a pre-validated business model to the next level
• Join an experienced founding team of serial and 2nd-time founders
• Attractive base and bonus compensation program
• Collaboration with top-tier investors and angels (incl. various unicorn founders) as well as leading market experts

If you’re eager to join and shape what’s next, we want to hear from you!

Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

Project A is committed to diversity and equal opportunities for all – applicants and employees alike. We value humans – with all our glorious multifaceted backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Our diverse team has different ethnic and cultural origins, gender identities, sexual orientations, family arrangements, religious and political affiliations, socioeconomic statuses, age groups, and abilities.