Senior Backend Engineer

Aiven Unify’s mission is simple: help customers quickly discover, govern, and query their data—delivering value in minutes, not months.

Here’s a short pitch from the Product Director behind this initiative: “I'm building a small, fast-moving team inside Aiven - think startup energy, minimal process, and full ownership. The goal is to launch new open-source managed services that will drive a platform effect for Aiven, including a Data Catalog, a Federated Query Engine, and other technologies to help our customers do more across their data stack. Basically trying to make an open-source first data platform.”

We’re looking for engineers with experience across Python, REST APIs, Java, understanding of PostgreSQL, OpenSearch, Kafka, Terraform, and cloud infrastructure to help us build and scale these next-generation data services.

The Role:

We’re looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to help bring this vision to life. You’ll design and build core services, shape APIs, work on data ingestion and orchestration, and contribute to the open-source projects we depend on. You’ll be a key part of a small, startup-mode team inside Aiven, shipping fast, learning from users, and setting the technical foundation for a product that will scale.

What You'll Do:

• Design and implement managed open source services that power the metadata discovery and governance system.
• Build and extend the Metadata Orchestrator, listening to control-plane events and orchestrating ingestion jobs without messy cron scheduling.
• Develop ingestion connectors & pipeline and backend logic for indexing and serving metadata.
• Shape APIs (REST/HTTP) that connect the backend with UI and integrations.
• Work with identity & policy mapping so Aiven Teams, Projects, and SSO map cleanly into managed service access controls (RBAC/ABAC).
• Focus on operability: deployment patterns, monitoring, observability (metrics/logs/traces), and incident response.
• Collaborate closely with engineers, designers, product, and platform/security teams to deliver end-to-end functionality.

What We're Looking For:

• Solid experience building backend services for managed services/SaaS.
• Hands-on coding experience with:
• Python for backend services, ingestion, and orchestration
• REST APIs as a primary interface
• JVM (Java / Kotlin) for fixes and improvements in the open-source projects
• Knowledge of data storage and indexing systems: relational DBs (PostgreSQL/MySQL), search engines (OpenSearch/Elasticsearch), and event logs (Kafka).
  Familiarity with Kubernetes, Terraform/IaC, and cloud networking basics.
• A security-conscious mindset: you think about threat modeling, access controls, and auditability.
• Pragmatic problem-solving: you enjoy building clean systems that are easy to operate and evolve.

Nice to have:

• Previous experience at early-stage startups.
• Contributions to open-source projects.
• Exposure to AI workflows integrated into production software.
• Experience with metadata systems, policy-enforced access, or governance tools.
• Familiarity with Aiven-managed services (Kafka®, PostgreSQL®, OpenSearch®, ClickHouse®).

Don’t worry if your experience doesn’t line up perfectly – we still encourage you to apply! We believe in investing in our crabs’ professional growth.

Our Offer

If you ask us what’s the best thing about working for Aiven, many will probably say it’s the high concentration of talent from around the world that we have here. Enjoy the agile environment of a hyperscale scale-up where you can truly make an impact and have fun while at it.

We invest in you

• Participate in Aiven’s equity plan.
• With Aiven locations spanning the globe, we want all of our crabs to find the right balance with our hybrid work policy.
• Get the equipment you need to set yourself up for success.
• Step up your career game with real employer support (use one of our learning platforms, annual learning budget, and more).
• Get holistic wellbeing support through our global Employee Assistance Program.

Make a difference at Aiven

• Contribute to open source projects that you find meaningful outside of work - and get paid for it! Our Plankton program recognizes extra work to the open source ecosystem for developers and non-developers alike.
• Use up to 5 days per year to volunteer for a good cause of your choice.
• Join one of our team member resource groups - empower yourself and others in missions that resonate with you.

What else?

• Your wellbeing matters: we provide extensive Occupational Health Care, Dental Care, as well as sports, culture, massage and lunch benefits
• Love breakfast? So do we! Join us at our regular office breakfast
• We also have you covered by statutory accident insurance

Amazing! What’s next?

Once applying you should hear from our Talent Experience team within 5 days regarding the status of your application. If you are selected to move forward you can generally expect 4 stages with us 

1. 30-45 minute call with one of our Talent Partners 
2. 45 minute Depth of Expertise Interview with the hiring manager 
3. Skills interview and or presentation for 1 hour with the wider team 
4. Company values interview for 1 hour 

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Here at Aiven, all of our emails relating to recruitment come from an @aiven.io, @greenhouse.io or @eu.greenhouse.io domain and all of our interviews are conducted over video call or in person, our interviews will never occur over text or chat. If you’re unsure of the legitimacy of a job opportunity/offer pertaining to Aiven, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at recruitment@aiven.io.

Equal Opportunities

Aiven provides equal employment opportunities to all qualified employees and applicants for employment without regard to age, gender identity, national or ethnic origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical and mental ability, marital and family status or without regard to any other similar personal attributes. Aiven complies with applicable local laws governing non-discrimination in employment in every location in which the company operates. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, training and any other terms and conditions related to employment.

At Aiven we are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs in our working environment and job application procedures. We make all reasonable accommodations for persons with disabilities or who otherwise need support to thrive in the workplace. We are committed to continuously improving workplace accessibility. There is an option to request a discussion in the application process but if you have any questions before applying please write to us at recruitment@aiven.io.