Senior Backend Engineer (Data & Platform)

Salary Competitive
Equity To be negotiated

Senior Backend Engineer (Data & Platform)

We are building a travel safety platform for individual travelers. The core of the system is a secure and scalable backend that aggregates data from multiple external sources and turns it into relevant, actionable information.

You will play a key role in designing and building the technical foundation of the platform.


The role

You will be responsible for:

  • Designing the backend architecture from the ground up

  • Building and maintaining API integrations with external data providers

  • Developing robust ingestion pipelines (APIs and, where necessary, structured scraping)

  • Designing a normalized data model for incident and contextual information

  • Ensuring security, reliability, and scalability from the start

  • Implementing monitoring, logging, and failure handling

  • Contributing to technical decisions around infrastructure and deployment


This is a hands-on role with significant ownership. You will work directly with the founder and have influence over architectural direction.


We are looking for someone who

  • Has 5+ years of backend development experience

  • Is comfortable designing production-grade systems

  • Has experience integrating third-party APIs (OAuth, rate limits, retries, idempotency)

  • Understands data modeling and relational databases (PostgreSQL)

  • Has worked with background processing, queues, and scheduled jobs

  • Thinks about security by default (authentication, secrets management, logging hygiene)

  • Can balance pragmatism with long-term scalability

  • Is comfortable in an early-stage environment


Experience with scraping, geodata, alert systems, or travel-related platforms is a plus, but not required.


What we offer

  • The opportunity to shape the core architecture of a data-driven platform from the beginning

  • A technically meaningful challenge at the intersection of data, safety, and global mobility

  • A serious, long-term vision with potential societal impact

  • The possibility of equity participation as part of the founding team, subject to funding and mutual agreement


We are looking for someone motivated by building solid systems that solve real-world problems in a structured and thoughtful way

 

Perks and benefits

This job comes with several perks and benefits

Skill development
Skill development

Flexible working hours
Flexible working hours

Work life balance
Work life balance

Free coffee / tea
Free coffee / tea

Remote work allowed
Remote work allowed

Near public transit
Near public transit

Working at
IKALENE

We are building a travel safety platform for individual travelers. Travel remains a strong driver of connection and understanding, but it now takes place in a more complex global environment. Geopolitical instability, climate-related events, health risks, and sudden local disruptions have become more frequent and less predictable. At the same time, international mobility remains high, and people continue to travel across borders for leisure, work, and personal reasons. Our research shows a clear gap between the desire to travel and the confidence to do so. In our survey work, a majority of respondents indicate that they would value a solution that combines timely safety warnings with practical, location-specific guidance. Market trends point in the same direction: travelers are increasingly attentive to safety and preparedness, while existing information sources remain fragmented, generic, or difficult to apply in real situations. Our purpose is to make travel safety clearer, more relevant, and easier to act on. We are developing a technology-based approach that brings together trusted international data, local context, and intelligent processing to support better decisions before and during travel. The focus is not on providing more information, but on providing the right information at the right time. The platform is structured around two core elements. The first is warnings and alerts when relevant incidents or changes occur. The second is a practical “411 guide” that provides contextual information about local conditions, norms, and considerations that matter for safety and confidence while traveling. Together, these elements form a consistent safety layer that follows the individual traveler, independent of destination. Technology and AI are essential to this approach. By aggregating multiple data sources and applying contextual filtering, we reduce noise and increase relevance. This allows complex and fast-changing situations to be translated into clear guidance that travelers can understand and use. We believe this represents a necessary evolution in travel technology. Safety is no longer a separate concern handled through static advice or manual checks. It needs to be integrated into the travel experience itself, in a way that supports mobility rather than restricting it. Our long-term ambition is to contribute to safer, more confident travel in a changing world. By improving access to relevant information and reducing uncertainty, we believe technology can help people continue to explore, connect, and engage across borders with greater awareness and responsibility. Travel safely, Explore freely.

Read more about IKALENE

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