Senior Full Stack Engineer (Backend Focus)

About Us

Smart Capital Center is an end-to-end, AI-powered platform for Commercial Real Estate (CRE) investment and financial management. We power real-time underwriting, asset management, and portfolio analytics through a combination of live data, workflow automation, and AI-driven insights.

Operating at the intersection of Generative AI, finance, and real estate, we are building systems that digitize and simplify complex financial workflows.

Our clients include leading institutions such as JLL, Pacific Life Insurance Company, and KeyBank. We are a lean, high-performance team building category-defining technology in a $17 trillion industry.

To learn more about our platform and vision, please visit www.smartcapitalcenter.com

The Role

We are looking for a Senior Backend-Focused Full Stack Engineer who excels at building scalable backend systems while remaining comfortable contributing across the full stack.

In this role, your primary focus will be designing and building the backend services, APIs, data models, and infrastructure that power our AI-driven financial platform. You'll also collaborate with frontend engineers and contribute to our React application when delivering end-to-end features.

This is a high-impact role for an engineer who enjoys solving complex backend challenges, takes ownership of core platform components, and helps shape the technical direction of our products.

What You Will Do

Backend Engineering (Primary Focus)

• Design, build, and maintain scalable backend services using Java/Spring Boot (preferred) or Python
• Develop secure, high-performance REST APIs that power real-time financial workflows
• Design efficient database schemas and optimize SQL queries for large datasets
• Build integrations with third-party services, financial data providers, and AI services
• Improve application performance, scalability, reliability, and observability
• Design asynchronous workflows, background jobs, caching, and event-driven architectures
• Troubleshoot production issues and continuously improve system resilience

Full Stack Development

• Deliver end-to-end features spanning backend services, APIs, and React frontend
• Collaborate with frontend engineers to define API contracts and data models
• Contribute to frontend development when needed using React and TypeScript
• Ensure seamless integration across backend services, frontend applications, and data layers

System Design & Architecture

• Design scalable, modular architectures that support rapid product evolution
• Define service boundaries, API contracts, and domain models
• Evaluate new technologies and architectural approaches
• Drive improvements in performance, maintainability, and scalability

Technical Leadership

• Own critical backend systems from design through production
• Establish high standards for code quality, testing, and maintainability
• Mentor engineers through code reviews and technical collaboration
• Proactively identify technical debt and drive long-term improvements

Collaboration

• Partner closely with Product, AI, and Frontend teams to deliver customer-facing features
• Participate in architecture discussions and technical planning
• Contribute to Agile development processes and continuous improvement

Requirements

Experience

• 5+ years of professional software development experience
• Proven experience building scalable backend systems in production
• Experience delivering full stack applications with a backend-first mindset
• Demonstrated ownership of systems throughout the software lifecycle

Backend (Primary Requirement)

• Strong experience with Java and Spring Boot (preferred) or Python
• Experience designing scalable REST APIs and backend services
• Strong understanding of distributed systems and microservice architectures
• Advanced SQL skills (PostgreSQL preferred)
• Experience with asynchronous processing, messaging, and event-driven systems
• Experience with caching technologies such as Redis
• Strong understanding of authentication, authorization, and application security
• Experience integrating external APIs and third-party services
• Experience optimizing application performance and database queries

Frontend (Secondary Requirement)

• Solid experience with React and TypeScript
• Comfortable building and maintaining modern frontend applications
• Experience consuming REST APIs and managing application state
• Understanding of frontend performance and responsive UI development
• Ability to contribute across the stack when required

Cloud & DevOps

• Experience with AWS or comparable cloud platforms
• Experience with Docker and containerized applications
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines
• Experience with monitoring, logging, and observability tools

Core Engineering Skills

• Strong system design and architectural thinking
• Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills
• Ability to balance technical excellence with business priorities
• High ownership and accountability
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills

Nice to Have

• Experience with Generative AI or LLM integrations
• Experience with vector databases or AI infrastructure
• Experience with GraphQL
• Experience with Kafka, RabbitMQ, or similar messaging platforms
• Experience with Kubernetes
• Experience building financial, investment, or analytics platforms
• Experience working with large-scale data processing pipelines
• Familiarity with Commercial Real Estate (CRE) or FinTech
• Experience using AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Claude Code, etc.)

Why Join Us

• Build the backend platform powering next-generation AI products for Commercial Real Estate
• Solve technically challenging problems involving distributed systems, AI, and financial data
• Own critical platform components with significant architectural influence
• Work alongside a high-performing, execution-focused engineering team
• Ship quickly with minimal bureaucracy and high autonomy
• Competitive compensation and benefits