Senior Backend Engineer

About the role:

We are looking for a Software Engineer to help design, build, and scale systems that process billions of dollars in transactions and enable new financial capabilities such as lending, payments, and workflow automation.This role is open to engineers with varying levels of experience. Depending on your background, you will take ownership of key components, contribute to system design, and help drive technical decisions that shape our platform. You’ll work on distributed, event-driven systems using technologies like Scala, Kafka, Kubernetes, and AWS—solving real-world problems where reliability, scalability, and security matter.

This role is hired through an Employer of Record (EOR) partner in the Czech Republic.

About us:

8am builds software that helps professionals run stronger businesses. Our platform powers payments, client experience, and operational workflows for legal, accounting, and other service-based businesses. U.S. based professionals count on our purpose-built solutions to simplify operations, ensure compliance, and fuel profitable growth, so they can focus on their clients and do more of the work that matters.

More than 250,000 professionals across the U.S. rely on our products every day. As we continue to grow, we’re investing in the next generation of our platform and are looking for experienced engineers who want to help shape its future.

What you'll do:

• Design and build scalable backend services and APIs for payments and financial workflows
• Contribute to event-driven systems using messaging and streaming technologies
• Collaborate with Product, Design, and Engineering to deliver practical, high-quality solutions
• Support deployments, monitoring, and troubleshooting in cloud environments
• Improve system reliability, performance, and security
• Participate in code reviews, knowledge sharing, and team discussions
• Contribute to technical design and architecture decisions (for more senior candidates)
• Explore and adopt new technologies and best practices where they add value

About you:

• Experience building backend systems in a professional environment (Scala, Java, or similar)
• Solid understanding of software design, APIs, and distributed systems
• Experience working with cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
• Familiarity with SQL and database design (RDBMS; NoSQL is a plus)
• Interest or experience in event-driven architecture (Kafka or similar)
• Comfortable debugging and improving production systems
• Strong problem-solving skills and a practical mindset
• Good communication skills and ability to work in a collaborative team
• Professional working proficiency in English
• Experience designing and operating large-scale, high-availability systems
• Ability to lead technical design and mentor other engineers
• Experience making architectural tradeoffs and driving solutions
• Demonstrated experience leveraging AI tools and technologies to improve workflows, enhance decision-making, or drive innovation.
• This position is preferably based in Brno, Czech Republic

Nice to have:

• Experience with Scala or functional programming
• Experience with Kafka or similar messaging systems
• Familiarity with Kubernetes and containerized environments
• Frontend experience (React / TypeScript)
• Experience in fintech, payments, or security-sensitive systems

Why join our new 8am Brno hub?

• Founding Team Impact: Be a founding engineer of our new Brno R&D hub. After a brief 1-6 month integration with U.S. based teams, you will help form fully autonomous, locally-led squads with clear paths to Staff and leadership roles
• Drive our "AI-First" Transformation: We are building a secure, massive-scale "Unified AI Platform". Depending on your squad, you will either help architect this core infrastructure (LLM routing, RAG, agent orchestration) or build directly on top of it.
• Build the Next Generation of Our Platform: Help shape the systems powering products used by more than 250,000 professionals. You’ll work on complex platform capabilities across payments, workflow automation, and AI-powered features as we expand into new professional service markets.

Benefits and Perks

We offer a competitive, locally relevant benefits package designed to support your life in the Czech Republic while giving you access to global opportunities:

• Performance bonus opportunities and employee referral rewards
• Flexible Time Off (FTO) and 13 paid public holidays aligned with the Czech calendar
• Paid sick leave with additional support through the Czech social security system
• Maternity, paternity, and parental leave in line with Czech regulations, plus additional paid paternity leave from 8am
• Full statutory benefits, including public health insurance, social security, pension, and work accident coverage

Grow Your Career

• Access to Coursera (including Gen AI Academy) and ongoing professional development
• Clear growth paths, regular feedback, and opportunities for advancement

What Makes 8am Different:

• International company environment with collaboration across Europe and the U.S.
• Opportunities to travel for company events (including potential U.S. visits)
• Engaging team culture with local events, outings, and community initiatives
• High-quality company swag and programs focused on wellness, learning, and connection

Diversity, equity & inclusion at 8am:

At 8am, we recognize that innovation occurs with a strong team of people who are diverse in background, personality, talent and ideas. Experience comes in many forms and ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace where we continue to learn from each other is an integral part of our culture. We are committed to creating a welcoming and transparent environment for all that embraces those differences through education, equal access to opportunities and information, inclusionary programs, and community outreach.

Security advisory:

Our hiring teams at 8am are dedicated to recruiting top talent that share our passion for serving the professional services industry through innovative financial technology. As such, our Talent Acquisition Team only follows legitimate hiring practices. We will always communicate with our candidates using emails with the 8am domain and will never ask for sensitive/personal data during the application process. All interviews take place over phone call, Zoom/Google Meet or in person. All offers are communicated verbally by our Talent Acquisition Specialists with a written offer letter as a follow up.