Backend Engineer

About the role

First Circle is a fast-growing, credit-centric neo-bank in Southeast Asia that builds its own products in-house. It is looking for a Backend Engineer who will build and maintain fast, reliable backend services and APIs, working closely with product and design teams.

Key responsibilities

• Build and evolve backend services and APIs that are fast, reliable and easy to change.
• Take features from idea to production: shape the approach with product and design, ship it, measure results and improve it.
• Set up early detection of issues, respond quickly and support users when something goes wrong.
• Review code, share knowledge and help other engineers grow.
• Work across product, design and business to turn real needs into practical technical solutions and explain the trade-offs clearly.

Required profile

• 3+ years of experience building and operating production backend systems in Kotlin, Java or Ruby.
• Experience in a startup environment; fintech, payroll, payments or banking experience is a strong plus, especially shipping products in regulated environments.
• Hands-on experience running services in production: debugging, incident investigation and improving resilience.
• Comfortable in a fast-moving environment where priorities can change.
• Curious about AI and with practical experience using it, such as LLM-powered features or AI tools.

Required skills

• Kotlin, Java or Ruby
• API design
• Relational databases and data modeling

What we offer

• No fixed budget; offers adjusted to experience and market rate.
• Flexible hours and location: remote work possible, with options to work from offices in London, Singapore, Manila, Hong Kong and Belgrade.
• MacBooks, private health insurance, training budgets and the chance to travel to Southeast Asia.