Software Engineer Backend (f/m/d) (Fixed-Term Parental Leave Cover)

You'll join Design Experience — the team behind the tools people use to turn an idea into something they can actually wear. We own the creation experience across our brands: the Create-omat design editor, AI-assisted design generation, template and text handling, embroidery, and the design services behind them. Our mission is to let anyone move from idea to product with the market's leading creation tools, and every order on our platform starts with a design that was made on one of our surfaces.

We are a small, senior team in Leipzig and Berlin with a product owner, a tech lead and a handful of engineers, which means the person who designs a service is usually the person who ships and runs it. Our stack spans two worlds: Create-omat is a Next.js application in TypeScript that currently also carries its own backend-for-frontend, while the surrounding services run on the JVM with Spring against MySQL, MongoDB and S3. The AI side runs on OpenAI and fal.ai models with Langfuse for tracing and cost control, and everything ships through GitLab CI onto Kubernetes.

This is a fixed-term position covering a parental leave. It is not a placeholder role: the backend work waiting for you is the part of our roadmap that decides what the next two years of our architecture look like.

What You´ll Do

• Pull business logic out of the Create-omat BFF and into services other frontends can actually use — today the design editor owns logic, data and storage all at once, and that is the single biggest constraint on the team
• Build our design generation backend: moderation, image generation, design enhancement and background removal as a pipeline that Create-omat, the Partner Area and our upcoming co-creation agent all call, instead of each building their own
• Replace splitbrain, the Spring service that serves the Partner Area with a near-duplicate of that same functionality — two systems, one capability, and your job is to make it one
• Design and build the system-layer APIs behind our data — Scene, Template and Design — so that MongoDB and S3 stop being something every consumer reaches into directly, and take part in the cross-team API discussions where those contracts get agreed
• Modernize designer-service-api, a Java service with real consumers in two other teams: raise test coverage, retire vulnerable dependencies, and coordinate every contract change with the teams that depend on it
• Own services in production — observability, alerting, on-call-quality logging, and the performance questions that come with rendering and image pipelines
• Work with a product owner, designers and frontend engineers in an agile team, and connect what you build to whether people finish a design and put it in their basket

What You´ll Bring

• Several years of professional backend experience with services you carried from design to production and then operated
• Solid JVM skills — Java or Kotlin with Spring — including data modelling, migrations and the parts of a service that only hurt once traffic is real
• Working proficiency in Node.js and TypeScript, enough to be productive inside a Next.js backend-for-frontend from the first weeks — a large share of the logic you will move lives there
• REST API design as a craft: you think about the consumer of a response, you version deliberately, and you know what a breaking change costs other teams
• Confidence with both relational and document databases — MySQL and MongoDB in our case — plus object storage, and a clear sense of what belongs where
• A grasp of what it takes to run a service: containers, CI pipelines, metrics, structured logs and traces
• Self-direction. The role starts in the middle of an ongoing initiative rather than at the beginning of one, so you need to be able to read an existing system, ask the right people the right questions, and turn an under-specified topic into something you can ship in slices
• Testing as a habit and a working relationship with code review
• Good communication skills in English

Why Should You Join Us

• Autonomy and Impact: We believe in giving people real ownership. You'll have the freedom to make decisions, take action, and see the direct impact of your work on the business.
• Development and Growth: We believe that the greatest professional and personal growth happens when you're challenged. If you're looking to build your career, you'll find plenty of opportunities to do so.
• We Win as a Team: Work alongside ambitious, motivated colleagues who challenge and support each other to achieve exceptional results. Through honest feedback, high standards, and shared ambition, we bring out the best in one another.
• Learn from Proven Entrepreneurs: Work closely with experienced founders and business leaders, gaining first-hand insights into growing a successful international company.
• Transparency and Involvement: Stay connected to our vision through regular General Assemblies, learn about our processes in our production sites in the Czech Republic and join workshops and cross function initiatives to lead positive change.
• The Extras That Matter: Enjoy 30 days of paid vacation, attractive employee discounts on our products and partner brands, modern office spaces designed for collaboration, and regular company events where we celebrate our successes together.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We value diversity at Spread Group. We are proud of and continue to encourage the increasing diversity of our company culture and community. Your skills, talents, and experience are our focus no matter your age, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, marital or disability status.

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