Senior Backend Developer (freelance)

If youre a backend engineer who doesnt just build whats asked but shapes how its built we want to talk. Were looking for someone who can own the technical direction of a project end to end: architecture infrastructure trade-offs and the conversations that come with them. Youd join us on a freelance time & material basis: youre paid for the hours you actually work on real client projects. Full capacity from the start. The first three months are about figuring out if were a good match. When things work out and that depends on the work itself the project pipeline and business timing theres a real path to our core team with a permanent contract and full benefits.

Weve been designing and co-creating connected devices since 2008. Wearables smart audio health-tech hardware for clients like Oura and BOSE backed by investors like a16z and Founders Fund. Were 60 people fully remote and AI-native since before LinkedIn influencers discovered the term. We use AI every day in actual work not just in company decks. Our backend isnt generic CRUD: its the cloud spine of physical devices the layer where firmware meets data pipelines and where one bad architectural call shows up in a sensor reading six months later.

If your comfort zone is a well-defined Jira board clear specs and someone else making the architectural calls this isnt going to work. Were not hiring a senior developer who executes well. Were hiring someone who decides what gets built how it gets built and why. Someone who walks into a room full of ambiguity and starts creating structure not waiting for it. If you need a ticket to start moving if thats not in the requirements is a sentence you use often or if youd rather not be the one explaining a technical trade-off to a client were probably not your people. Were AI-native and we expect you to treat AI tools as a daily multiplier not a gimmick.

• Own and evolve the backend architecture for IoT projects: data ingestion pipelines API design infrastructure decisions

• Make technical trade-off calls and defend them clearly to the team and to clients

• Design and maintain cloud infrastructure on AWS (EKS Aurora DynamoDB Timestream S3) with production-grade reliability

• Lead technical discussions: RFCs architecture reviews post-mortems because you see the need not because someone asked

• Mentor other backend engineers raise the bar on code quality and set patterns others can follow

• Work side by side with firmware engineers mobile developers QA PMs and clients

• Use AI tools as part of your daily workflow not as a party trick

• Challenge product and technical assumptions when something doesnt add up even when it means a harder conversation

Fully remote. We have a pet-friendly office in Warsaw and a coworking space in Gdansk if walls and coffee machines motivate you but nobody will ask why youre not there. Working hours are flexible: most of the team operates between 10:00 and 18:00 CET and thats when most meetings happen. Evening calls with US-based clients (up to 20:00) are part of the rhythm sometimes a couple of times a week always planned ahead. Youll be part of the Mobile chapter (which covers backend/cloud too) for knowledge-sharing and at the same time on a project squad led by a PM for day-to-day delivery.

• 90-180 PLN/h net B2B depending on your experience

• Truly flexible hours: you organize your day

• Fully remote with pet-friendly Warsaw office Gdansk cowork if you want them

• Access to our internal knowledge-sharing: tech talks experiments side projects

• When the first 3 months work out and that depends on the work the project pipeline and business timing theres a real path to a permanent contract with a fixed monthly salary 26 days paid leave 10 sick days Saltus medical care and a training budget

No sugarcoating: during the freelance period theres no paid leave or medical benefits. Those come with the permanent contract and were transparent about that upfront.

We aim to give you space to ramp up before jumping into live project work but this is a real company with real deadlines: if the project needs you sooner well make sure you have the support to hit the ground running. Youll get paired with a technical buddy and tackle progressively bigger tasks so both sides can see how the collaboration feels. Feedback comes early and often no one waits three months to tell you something isnt working. If its great youll know. If something needs adjusting youll hear about it while theres still time to adjust.

The entire process is in English. All interviews are recorded for internal evaluation purposes.

1. Application with a few screening questions

2. HR call 45 min casual

3. Technical meeting 90 min with the technical team

4. Final feedback within a few days

Once were in touch youll hear from us fast. We dont ghost and we dont drag.

intent is an equal opportunity employer. We care about what you can do not where you come from. Send us your CV and a few words about why this caught your eye. Bonus points if you share something youve built that made you proud ideally something where the architecture mattered.

• 7 years of backend development with a meaningful chunk spent leading technical direction not just writing code

• Strong skills in production systems at scale (not I followed a tutorial once)

• Deep hands-on AWS expertise: EKS Aurora DynamoDB Timestream S3

• Kubernetes (EKS) Docker and Terraform: youve built and maintained real infrastructure not just clicked through the console

• Solid understanding of distributed systems event-driven architectures and data pipelines

• Experience with MQTT or similar IoT messaging protocols

• CI/CD pipelines youve designed yourself (GitHub Actions GitLab CI Jenkins)

• English at B2 written and spoken: youll be in rooms with US-based clients and you need to hold your own

• The ability to translate business needs into technical decisions and explain those decisions to non-technical stakeholders

• Strong opinions loosely held: you propose direction you defend it and you change your mind when the evidence says you should

• Previous IoT or connected device projects especially anything involving telemetry at scale

• Golang in production (were adding it alongside )

• Observability stack experience: tracing metrics structured logging

• Security mindset for cloud-connected devices: secrets mTLS OTA updates

• Genuine curiosity about the devices your backend talks to not just the cloud side of the story