Medior Backend Developer

Utrecht (Hybrid: Tue/Thu in office) | 32 - 40 hours | 3588-4244 per month

Your Mission: Building the Foundation

Faqta provides the digital foundation that thousands of teachers across the Netherlands rely on every day to deliver lessons, track progress, and manage their classrooms.

As we move beyond the startup phase, we are evolving into a structured, high-quality engineering organization. We are currently modernizing our backend to ensure our platform remains stable, scalable, and maintainable as our reach continues to grow.

As a Backend Developer, you will play a key role in transitioning our legacy systems into a robust, future-proof environment, directly improving the tools that power the modern classroom.

• Improving the systems that process student results and track learning progress
• Rebuilding and optimizing core areas of the platform used daily by teachers
• Improving backend scalability as platform usage grows
• Moving toward more modular backend services
• Strengthening testing and system reliability
• Evaluating infrastructure improvements on GCP

You will own backend features and systems from design through deployment, working closely with product, design, and the rest of the engineering team.

We are a small engineering team, which means everyone has real ownership.

You won’t be waiting for someone to tell you exactly what to do next. We expect engineers to think about problems, propose solutions, and drive their work forward.

Because the team is small, the systems you build will directly impact how thousands of teachers and students use the platform.

High-trust, low-ego, and zero corporate fluff. Our retrospectives are a genuine safe space where we discuss technical challenges openly - and yes, there is a meme section. We take the work seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

We hire experienced engineers and trust them with real ownership. No micromanagement - just collaboration, accountability, and the freedom to do great work.

• Residency: You are a Dutch or EU citizen currently living in The Netherlands.
• Language: Our dev team works in English, so you should communicate clearly and professionally in English. Since the rest of the company and the product are Dutch, speaking Dutch is a big plus.
• Education: You hold a Bachelor’s and/or Master’s degree in Computer Science or a related field.

• 3 to 5 years of professional experience building backend systems for SaaS products.
• Experience designing and maintaining scalable APIs and backend services
• Solid understanding of relational databases (MySQL or similar) 
• Experience with cloud platforms such as GCP (preferred) or AWS.

We know that not everyone matches every requirement. If you're excited about the role, we still encourage you to apply.

• Ownership without Isolation: You are proactive and take the lead on your projects, but you know that asking for help is a strength. 
• Low Ego: You care deeply about code quality, but you value the best solution for the product over being "right."
• Continuous Improvement: You naturally look for ways to improve the developer experience for the whole team.
• Clear Communication: You can explain complex backend challenges to a designer or a product manager in a way that makes sense to them.

• Backend
• Node.js / TypeScript
• Express
• Infrastructure
• Google Cloud Platform (GCP)
• Kubernetes
• Data
• MySQL
• Redis
• BigQuery

• Competitive Salary: A gross monthly salary between € 3858 and € 4244, based on experience, excluding 8% holiday pay.
• 25 Vacation Days: (Based on FTE).
• Well-being: Pension plan, travel reimbursement.
• Hybrid Setup: A schedule that respects your life. We meet in the Utrecht office on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• Annual Resource Check-In: A dedicated session to review your toolkit. We discuss hardware upgrades, home office essentials and professional development needs to ensure your environment and skills keep pace with your work.
• 10% Innovation & Impact Time: Every second Friday is yours to explore new ideas, improve tooling, or experiment with new technologies. We regularly share what we learn during demo sessions.

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1. The Intro (30min): A quick conversation with the Manager and a Backend peer to discuss culture, team dynamics, and our technical philosophy.
2. The Deep Dive (60min): A joint technical session in our office in Utrecht. We’ll dive into backend architecture, API design, and problem solving together, focusing on real-world architecture and practical problem-solving.
3. After the Deep Dive (15min): Informal meet and greet with HR and CEO.
4. The Match: We follow up quickly with a decision or an offer.