Backend Engineer (Mid / Senior)

About Flowmingo

Flowmingo is a Y Combinator-backed startup (plus VinaCapital & top global investors) on a mission to democratize hiring. We believe the current hiring model is broken: recruiters only have time to interview 5% of applicants, leaving 95% of talent—the "hidden gems"—undiscovered.

We are fixing this with an AI-native, high-volume interviewing platform. Our model is unique: we offer our tool for free to recruiters to capture the massive, uncontested markets of Southeast Asia, LATAM, and Africa. This allows us to process massive volumes of candidates that traditional, expensive platforms cannot touch.

The Engineering Challenge

To make this high-volume model work, our architecture must be exceptionally efficient. We don't just spin up servers; we optimize every cycle.

We are building a system that must handle thousands of simultaneous video interviews across diverse network conditions and device types. The challenge isn't just "making it work"—it's making it work at a cost structure that allows us to serve millions of users for free.

We are looking for Backend Engineers (Mid-Level & Senior) who don't just write code, but care about performance, resource efficiency, and architectural elegance.

What You Will Do

Responsibilities will be tailored to your seniority level.

• Build High-Efficiency AI Pipelines: You will architect and maintain the APIs that power our core interview experience, ensuring low latency and high reliability for users in emerging markets.
• High-Volume Video Ingestion: Work on robust asynchronous systems (queues/workers) to handle the ingestion, storage, and processing of video data without blocking the user experience.
• Optimize for Scale & Cost: You will treat "computational resource usage" as a primary design constraint. You will help us refactor and optimize code to ensure our infrastructure scales cost-effectively as user volume explodes.
• Global Payment & Monetization: Implement secure, scalable micro-transaction flows to handle high-volume, low-value payments across diverse global payment gateways.
• Scale the Data Layer: Manage and optimize database structures (SQL & NoSQL) to handle millions of candidate interactions and generate deep-insight reports.

What You Bring

We are an elite team. We value engineers who move fast and understand the business implications of their code.

We are hiring across levels:

• Senior: 7+ years experience. You have seen systems break at scale, can architect complex features independently, and mentor others.
• Mid-Level: 3+ years experience. You are solid with the stack, can own features, and write clean, testable code.

Technical Stack:

• Core API: Strong proficiency in Node.js, NestJS, and TypeScript.
• AI Layer: Proficiency in Python is highly valued.
• Infrastructure: Experience with Async Queues (RabbitMQ/Redis) and PostgreSQL.

The "Flowmingo Factor":

• Resource-Aware Mindset: You enjoy writing code that is performant and efficient. You understand that "working" is not enough; it must be fast and cheap to run.
• Media Experience (Bonus): Familiarity with handling audio/video streams or large binary data is a massive plus.
• Emerging Market Empathy: You understand the constraints of device fragmentation and internet connectivity in emerging markets. You build for resilience and reliability.
• Startup DNA: You are comfortable shipping to production daily. You prefer "done" over "perfect," but you never compromise on security or core stability.

Why This Role is Different

• Massive Scale: We aren't building for a niche group. We are building for the millions of candidates currently ignored by the hiring system in the fastest-growing economies in the world.
• Real Technical Challenges: You will tackle unique challenges regarding bandwidth, device latency, and high concurrency that standard SaaS roles rarely encounter.
• Elite Peers: You will work alongside team members hailing from top institutions (YC, UPenn, NYU etc.).
• High Impact / Low Bureaucracy: We are a lean team. You won't be writing JIRA tickets for a month; you'll be shipping features that thousands of candidates use the next day.
• YC Network: As an early hire at a YC startup, you gain access to the most powerful startup network in the world.

Application Process

We don't believe in long, drawn-out processes.

1. CV Review: We look for builders, not just maintainers.
2. Technical Screen: A practical discussion on architecture and problem-solving (No whiteboard riddles).
3. Culture Fit: Meeting the founders.

Ready to build the future of hiring? Apply now!