- Company Name
- Headway
- Job Title
- Senior Backend Software Engineer
- Job Description
-
Job title: Senior Backend Software Engineer
Role Summary:
Design and build scalable backend services that power Headway’s mental‑health platform, including financial processing, insurance claims, and therapy practice management. Work cross‑functionally to deliver reliable, high‑performance APIs and maintain data integrity across Postgres, Redis, and cloud infrastructure.
Expectations:
* Own architecture and implementation of mission‑critical services.
* Develop, test, deploy, and maintain solutions at scale (hundreds of thousands of claims/month).
* Mentor junior engineers and shape technical direction for the backend team.
* Participate in safety, security, and monitoring best practices.
Key Responsibilities:
1. Design system‑level architecture for new features (e.g., claims handling, financial bookkeeping).
2. Develop RESTful/GraphQL APIs using FastAPI/Python 3, maintain code quality with unit/integration tests.
3. Optimize performance, durability, and scalability on AWS (Fargate, ECS, S3), Postgres, and Redis.
4. Implement observability with Datadog, PagerDuty, Sentry; manage vulnerability scanning via Snyk/Semgrep.
5. Lead code reviews, enforce coding standards, and mentor peers.
6. Collaborate with product, ops, and CX teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
7. Evaluate and recommend new technologies, build‑vs‑buy decisions, and contribute to engineering process improvements.
Required Skills:
* Python 3, with experience in FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, and asynchronous programming.
* Strong backend architecture design skills; experience with microservices, event‑driven patterns (Kafka).
* Proficiency with relational data modeling in Postgres and caching in Redis.
* Cloud infrastructure knowledge – AWS services (Fargate, ECS, S3).
* Observability, monitoring, and incident response (Datadog, PagerDuty, Sentry).
* Familiarity with security, vulnerability scanning, and cloud security tooling (Snyk, Semgrep, Lacework).
* Excellent communication, mentoring, and cross‑functional collaboration skills.
* Ability to work in ambiguous, fast‑paced environments and learn new domains rapidly.
Required Education & Certifications:
* Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related field.
* Optional certifications in AWS, Python, or security practices are a plus.