Senior Backend Engineer (Contractor)
Location: Remote — Eastern Europe
Engagement: Contractor
Experience: Senior, 5+ years
Time zone: Must consistently overlap with U.S. working hours
About Hauler Hero
Hauler Hero builds the operating system for residential and commercial waste haulers, including dispatch, routing, billing, payments, customer management, reporting, and the driver app that ties field operations together.
Our customers are private hauler owners, operators, and municipal waste leaders running essential services every day. Many are still managing their businesses through paper tickets, whiteboards, spreadsheets, disconnected systems, and legacy software. The result is missed revenue, messy routes, limited visibility, and too much time spent fighting fires instead of growing the business.
Today, we serve 240+ haulers across the country and are scaling quickly. We are a well-funded, fast-moving vertical SaaS company bringing modern software to an essential industry where the customer need is clear and the opportunity is large.
Role Summary
We are hiring a Senior Backend Engineer to design, build, and evolve the core backend services that power Hauler Hero’s platform.
This is a 100% hands-on senior individual contributor role focused on building scalable, reliable, and maintainable systems used daily by waste hauling companies across North America.
You will work closely with Product, Frontend, and Platform Engineering to ship features, improve system robustness, and continuously refactor existing services as the platform scales. This role requires strong technical judgment, comfort with ambiguity, and clear communication in a remote environment.
AI-First Backend Engineering
We are intentionally building an AI-assisted engineering organization. AI tools are part of the daily workflow, not optional.
What this means in practice:
Daily use of tools such as Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot
AI-assisted implementation of Spring Boot services, APIs, database migrations, and business logic
AI-assisted test generation, refactoring suggestions, and code review support
AI-assisted log analysis, debugging, and issue investigation
You remain accountable for reviewing, validating, and owning everything AI produces
Speed matters, but correctness, performance, and maintainability matter more.
This role is not a fit for engineers who are resistant to AI-assisted development or who rely on AI output without understanding the underlying system.
Key Responsibilities
Core Backend Development
Design, build, and maintain robust backend service layers
Write clean, testable, high-performance code in Java and/or Kotlin using Spring Boot
Design and implement APIs that scale with real production workloads
Refactor and extend existing services to improve reliability and maintainability
Create reusable components and patterns that improve team velocity
Data and Performance
Design and optimize relational schemas in PostgreSQL
Write and tune performant SQL queries for large data volumes
Validate that database access patterns scale under load
Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across services
Collaboration and Delivery
Work as part of a cross-functional Agile or Scrum team
Participate in design reviews, code reviews, and architectural discussions
Collaborate with Frontend and Product teams on feature development
Debug and resolve production issues as they arise
Contribute to improving engineering processes and practices
Mentorship and Culture
Mentor engineers through code reviews and technical discussions
Contribute to a culture of learning, iteration, and constructive feedback
Share context proactively to avoid knowledge silos
Required Qualifications
Experience
5+ years of experience building production backend systems
Experience designing and operating systems with distributed data and meaningful scale
Experience working in Agile or Scrum environments
Strong experience with Git and GitHub workflows
Core Technologies
Strong proficiency with Spring Boot using Java and/or Kotlin
Deep experience with relational databases, especially PostgreSQL
Experience building and maintaining production APIs
Experience refactoring toward or within microservice architectures
Skills
Ability to translate product requirements into technical solutions
Strong problem-decomposition and debugging skills
Solid computer science fundamentals and engineering judgment
Clear written and verbal English communication skills
Nice to Have
Experience with Node.js or React
Messaging and communication platforms such as SendGrid or Twilio
Event-driven architectures
Geospatial or location-based systems
Payments or financial integrations
Background in logistics, fintech, or B2B SaaS
Our Tech Stack
Backend: Java, Kotlin, Spring Boot, PostgreSQL
Cloud: Google Cloud Platform, including GKE, Cloud Run, and Cloud SQL
Caching and Data: Redis, Firestore
Frontend: React
CI/CD: Cloud Build, GitHub Actions
Monitoring: New Relic, Google Operations
What We Look For
Ownership and Judgment
You take problems through to resolution
You balance pragmatism with quality
You identify and eliminate single points of failure
Communication
Clear, proactive written communication in English
Comfort working asynchronously across time zones
Willingness to surface risks and tradeoffs early
Mindset
Curious, growth-oriented, and adaptable
Comfortable with ambiguity and iteration
Willing to refactor continuously as systems evolve
What Success Looks Like
Backend services are reliable, scalable, and maintainable
Features ship consistently with minimal rework
Production issues are diagnosable and resolved quickly
Database and API performance scales with usage
Strong trust from Frontend, Product, and Platform teams
Contractor and Location Notes
This is a contractor role, not full-time employment
Senior-level ownership and reliability are expected
This role is open to candidates located in Eastern Europe
Consistent overlap with U.S. working hours is required
Requires 5+ years building production backend systems, distributed systems at scale, Agile/Scrum experience, Git/GitHub workflows, Java or Kotlin with Spring Boot, PostgreSQL, production APIs, microservices, and English communication.
Key Responsibilities
- building backend services
- optimizing databases
- debugging production issues
Skills & Tools
Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Spring Boot, Java, Kotlin, PostgreSQL, SQL, Git, GitHub, Node.js, React, SendGrid, Twilio, Google Cloud Platform, GKE, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Redis, Firestore, Cloud Build, GitHub Actions, New Relic, Google Operations
Job Details
- Category: Software Development
- Seniority: Senior Level
- Commitment: Contract
- Workplace: Remote — Europe
- Languages: English
About Hauler Hero
A vertical SaaS company building operating software for residential and commercial waste haulers. — Industry: Information Technology