Back End Developer

ExistLive is a zero-fee ticketing, RSVP, and fundraising platform built for nonprofits, artists, and event organizers.

Role Overview

We’re looking for a Back-End Engineer to design, develop, and maintain our web applications and infrastructure. You’ll work closely with our front-end and product teams to deliver clean, reliable, and scalable systems that power real-world events and fundraising campaigns.

Format: Remote, full-time

Timezone: EEST (Kyiv) with at least 4 hours overlap

Start: ASAP

Responsibilities

• Build clean and fast Go services on Cloud Run (stateless, timeouts, concurrency, graceful shutdown).
• Develop and refine Stripe payment flows (Checkout / Connect / SetupIntents, webhooks, idempotency, retries).
• Implement ticketing logic (reservations, row-level locks, compensations on failure).
• Design and evolve REST APIs (OpenAPI-first), ensure backward compatibility and proper error handling.
• Work with PostgreSQL: schemas, migrations, indexes, EXPLAIN/ANALYZE, and query optimization.
• Integrate with Elastic proxy for event/ticket indexing and rebuild pipelines.
• Add observability (Datadog metrics/logs/traces) and define alerting standards.
• Write meaningful unit/integration tests and participate in constructive code reviews.

Qualifications

• 2+ years of production Go experience (context, goroutines, sync, http, pgx/driver).
• Strong SQL/PostgreSQL background (transactions, EXPLAIN, deadlocks, row-level locking).
• Understanding of Stripe/webhooks/idempotency — or willingness to learn quickly.
• Basic GCP/Docker experience (Cloud Run, environments, secrets).
• Strong API design mindset with Clean Architecture principles (SOLID, KISS, DRY, YAGNI).
• Self-driven, reliable, and ready to take ownership of full feature chunks — no micro-tasks.

Preferred Skills

• Firebase Auth, external login providers.
• Datadog APM (tracing, log correlation).
• Elasticsearch integration, indexing pipelines.
• OpenAPI-first, client/server generation; compile-time DI (Wire/alternatives).
• Intermediate+ English for documentation and team communication.

Tech Stack

Language: Go 1.25+

HTTP: Chi router + custom middleware

Database: PostgreSQL + PostGIS

ORM: GORM

Search: Elasticsearch (via proxy service)

Payments: Stripe (Checkout / Connect / SetupIntents)

Auth: Firebase Auth (+ custom tokens)

gRPC: partial, expanding

Containerization: Docker

CI/CD: GitHub Actions

Infrastructure: GCP (Cloud Run, App Engine, Cloud Storage)

Observability: Datadog

Code Quality: golangci-lint, testify tests

Who we’re looking for

• 2+ years of production Go experience (context, goroutines, sync, http, pgx/driver; profiling is a plus).
• Strong SQL/PostgreSQL: transactions, indexes, EXPLAIN, deadlocks, row‑level locking.
• Understanding of Stripe/webhooks/idempotency — or willingness to learn fast.
• Basic GCP/Docker experience: build an image, deploy to Cloud Run, configure environment variables/secrets.
• API design skills and commitment to simplicity (KISS, Clean Architecture).
• Self‑driven, go-getter mindset, and ready to take chunks of work, not micro‑tasks.

How We Work

• GitHub Flow: small PRs, meaningful commits.
• Linters via golangci-lint, formatting with gofmt/goimports.
• Mandatory idempotent handlers for webhooks and retries with backoff.
• Non-functional priorities: reliability > performance, with performance budgets for hot paths.

What We Offer

• Visible impact: your code powers real-world events and fundraising.
• Influence on architecture and technical debt priorities.
• Transparent code reviews and respectful collaboration.
• Paid 2-week trial period, followed by clear decision from both sides.
• 10 paid vacation days per year (after 1 year, flexible usage).

💬 Don’t meet every single requirement?

No problem. If you’re excited about what we’re building, we’d love to hear from you.