Senior/Staff Backend Engineer

Department: Engineering

Location: New York

Employment Type: FullTime

About Blackbird:

Blackbird Labs is a loyalty and payments platform establishing meaningful connections between the world’s best restaurants and their customers.

Served up in 2022 by Ben Leventhal, co-founder of Eater and Resy, Blackbird offers a fully customizable loyalty programming platform for restaurants and a consumer app designed to make every guest feel like a bonafide VIP no matter where they dine. Backed by Union Square Ventures, a16z, Amex Ventures, Variant Fund, and other forward-thinking investors, Blackbird is out to revolutionize the restaurant industry.

About Our Team:

At Blackbird, our values guide everything we do and our talent principles define the key traits we seek in our employees.

We have passion for our product – committed to our mission and instinctively think like and go the extra mile for our customers. We are elite performers – striving for excellence, going above and beyond to achieve exceptional results, and learning quickly with horsepower, drive, and grit. We make others better – taking initiative to elevate others, giving and receiving feedback, and championing a culture of growth. We hold one another accountable to living out our talent principles as we march together to achieving our mission.

About the Job 

At Blackbird, we believe every guest should feel like a VIP the moment they walk into a restaurant. Whether it’s last-minute tables, welcome drinks, off-menu items, or exclusive perks, we’re building a platform that helps restaurants identify, connect with, and reward their guests in meaningful and personalized ways.

Our vision? The more you check in at your favorite spots, the more you unlock—from unique rewards to seamless direct messaging for reservations. With each visit, you’ll earn $FLY, our universal rewards currency, which you can use across our network of outstanding restaurants.

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you’ll be responsible for designing, developing, and maintaining our core APIs. You’ll work closely with product managers, designers, and fellow engineers to define and execute the technical vision behind our payments and loyalty platforms. You’ll contribute to key architectural decisions, help establish engineering best practices, and play a critical role in scaling the platform. We’re looking for someone who thrives in a fast-paced, high-ownership environment and is excited to build products from the ground up.

Responsibilities 

• Design, build, and maintain core backend APIs

• Collaborate with product, design, and engineering peers to deliver features aligned with business goals

• Contribute to system architecture and implement scalable, robust solutions

• Uphold and promote backend best practices, with a focus on code quality, testing, and performance

• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers and foster a collaborative, growth-oriented team culture

• Participate in product and design discussions, offering backend perspectives on implementation and feasibility

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience building and deploying backend APIs

• Strong proficiency in Kotlin or another statically typed JVM language

• Deep experience designing and maintaining RESTful APIs using domain-driven design principles

• Solid understanding of SQL databases, including schema design and performance tuning

• Strong attention to detail and commitment to delivering high-quality user experiences

• Ability to work autonomously and make sound decisions in a fast-moving environment

• Experience mentoring engineers and contributing positively to team culture

• Comfortable working cross-functionally with product, design, and other stakeholders

Nice to Haves

• Experience with the Spring framework and database abstraction layers such as Hibernate

• Familiarity with the U.S. payments ecosystem, including debit, credit, and ACH processing

• Exposure to DevOps practices, including AWS infrastructure and Terraform

• Interest or experience in blockchain, especially with cryptography fundamentals

• Experience productionizing generative AI features (e.g. retrieval-augmented generation, prompt engineering, or model integration)

Pay Transparency Notice & Benefits

Depending on your work location and experience the target annual salary for this position can range from: $180,000-$220,000 USD. Disclosure in accordance with New York City's Pay Transparency Law.

Full time offers from Blackbird may also include stock options, benefits (including medical, dental, vision, flexible time off, 401(k)), and some not-so-standard, extra-fun perks — subject to applicable taxes and based on eligibility.

Commitment to Equal Opportunity

Blackbird Labs is committed to diversity in its workforce and is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, creed, gender, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, sex, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation or any other basis protected by applicable law. Blackbird will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with applicable law. For US applicants, you may view the Know Your Rights notice here. Additionally, Blackbird participates in the E-Verify program.

Join us and find out what the best work of your career could look like here at Blackbird.