About EQWIN:
Founded in 2022, EQWIN is a fast-growing startup reimagining the horse racing experience. Our app bridges the real and digital worlds, allowing users to create and manage their own virtual racing stables built from real racehorses whose value evolves with live performance.
With over 25,000 users in France and a recent acquisition by a U.S. investment fund (April 2025), we’re now preparing for international expansion.
Our mission: make horse racing modern, fun, and accessible to a new generation of fans.
About the role:
We are looking for a Backend Lead Dev to lead the backend direction of our product.
This is a senior hands-on engineering role for someone who can take ownership of the existing backend, improve its performance and reliability, support feature delivery, and help prepare the backend for a future Java-oriented architecture.
You will work with our current Node.js / TypeScript backend stack, collaborate closely with the Systems Analyst on specifications and API contracts, and work with the Frontend / Mobile Lead Dev to deliver high-quality product features.
A quick note for candidates:
The description below is a picture of our ideal candidate. If you cover at least half and can learn the rest quickly, you definitely need to apply!
Responsibilities:
- Lead backend development and technical ownership for the EQWIN product.
- Take ownership of the existing backend codebase and help stabilize, refactor and improve it.
- Develop and maintain backend services using Node.js / TypeScript.
- Work with Adonis or comparable Node.js backend frameworks.
- Design, review and evolve APIs used by mobile and web clients.
- Work with the Systems Analyst on technical specifications, API contracts and acceptance criteria.
- Collaborate closely with Frontend / Mobile Lead Dev, QA, DevOps and Product.
- Improve backend performance, reliability, scalability and maintainability.
- Identify and reduce unnecessary AWS / infrastructure overhead where possible.
- Work with PostgreSQL, SQL optimization and database performance topics.
- Support integrations with payment providers, data providers and other external services.
- Define backend engineering standards, code review practices and quality expectations.
- Improve observability, logging, monitoring and incident handling.
- Help design the future migration path toward Java / Spring Boot / JVM-based services.
- Support a pragmatic transition strategy: current stack ownership first, Java readiness from day one.
Current technology stack:
- Node.js
- TypeScript
- Adonis or comparable Node.js backend framework
- PostgreSQL
- GraphQL / REST APIs
- AWS stack: Lambda, API Gateway, Cognito, SQS, Secrets Manager, CloudWatch, CloudFront
- CI/CD pipelines
- Observability and monitoring tools
Strategic direction:
- Better performance, cost efficiency and maintainability
- Clearer service boundaries
- Improvement of the existing TypeScript backend
- Migration to Java / Spring Boot / JVM services
Must-have requirements:
- Strong backend-first profile, not primarily full-stack.
- Strong production experience with Node.js / TypeScript backend development.
- Strong ownership of existing codebases: code review, refactoring, stabilization and technical improvement.
- Experience with Adonis or comparable Node.js backend frameworks is a strong plus.
- Strong experience with PostgreSQL, SQL optimization and database performance.
- Strong understanding of API design and backend architecture.
- Experience with performance profiling, caching and backend optimization.
- Good understanding of AWS cost / performance trade-offs.
- Experience with observability, logs, metrics, monitoring and incident handling.
- Solid experience with Java / Spring Boot / JVM backend.
- Ability to design a migration path from TypeScript backend services toward Java services.
- Strong code review culture and ability to mentor backend developers.
- Strong professional English for daily technical communication, documentation, code review and architecture discussions.
Nice to have requirements:
- Experience with payments, fintech, wallets, KYC / AML, regulated products or other high-reliability systems.
- Experience with high-traffic or performance-sensitive backend systems.
- Experience with AWS Lambda, SQS, Cognito, CloudWatch and related AWS services.
- Experience with Redis or other caching systems.
- Experience with GraphQL, Hasura, REST API design or API gateways.
- Experience with Flyway / Liquibase or similar database migration tools.
- Experience with security-sensitive backend flows.
- Russian and/or French language skills are strong pluses.
Terms:
- Format: B2B (contractor), fully remote from any location (work from anywhere). Upon mutual interest, later involvement in additional company projects is possible and, subject to requirements, a transition to an employment contract with a French company.
- Workload: full-time.
- Compensation: EUR by contractor invoice, payment via SEPA / SWIFT or a licensed EMI (e.g., Wise). Ability to receive payments from France to a B2B (contractor) account is required.
Why join us:
- You will join at a key moment, as we are strengthening our internal engineering team.
- You will have real technical ownership of the backend direction.
- You will work on a live production product with real users.
- You will help improve backend performance, reliability and cost efficiency.
- You will help define the future backend architecture and Java migration path.
- You will help build a product that brings a traditional sport into a modern digital experience.