Senior Software Engineer - Discovery (m/f/d)

Location: Berlin, BE, de

Company Description

Flink is the leading quick commerce player in Europe. We are on a mission to give people back time: You can order your groceries through our app and we deliver to your doorstep in minutes. We carry 3,000 products with a focus on the leading brands in each category. We aim for sustainability by making deliveries on electric bikes and utilizing recyclable packaging. 

Flink launched in February 2021 and already operates in more than 90 cities in Germany, and the Netherlands. The business generated more than EUR 500m in revenues in 2023 and is operationally profitable. Flink is backed by the world’s most renowned tech investors, including Prosus, Mubadala, and Bond, and strategic investors like Doordash and REWE. We take great pride in being an inclusive employer that offers equal opportunities, and we celebrate the diversity and multiculturalism of our team. We're growing fast and always pushing ourselves to do better - we play for #1.

In your role as a Senior Backend Engineer - Discovery (m/f/d), you will be at the very core of our users' journey, architecting the future of how millions of customers find, explore, and engage with our vast product catalog. This is not just a coding role; you will be a technical leader, strategist, and role model, instrumental in pioneering our world-class Search platform and our cutting-edge Retail Media and Ad-Tech capabilities.

Working at the exciting intersection of high-performance backend engineering and applied science, you will define technical direction, tackle ambiguous problems, and build resilient, scalable systems in close collaboration with our Data Science teams to integrate sophisticated Machine Learning models into our products.

Job Description

• Define Technical Vision: Define and drive the 6-12 month technical vision and strategy for your engineering team, translating complex business goals into a concrete technical roadmap.
• Architect & Build: Design, develop, and operate high-throughput, low-latency backend services using GoLang and Kotlin (Spring), deployed on Kubernetes.
• Lead & Influence: Act as a strong technical leader within your team and a key influencer across the wider engineering organization. You will mentor other engineers, lead architectural discussions, and make pragmatic trade-offs to deliver customer value effectively.
• Solve Ambiguous Problems: Tackle challenging, open-ended problems in partnership with senior peers and product managers. You will be responsible for defining the 'what,' the 'how,' and the 'when,' breaking down complexity into actionable plans.
• Drive Cross-Team Impact: Lead and contribute to initiatives that span multiple engineering teams, ensuring seamless execution and delivery with minimal guidance.
• Innovate & De-risk: Champion a culture of experimentation by regularly using proofs of concept and low-cost experiments to validate architectural choices, improve planning, and mitigate risks.
• Collaborate Deeply: Work hand-in-hand with Product Managers, Data Scientists, and other stakeholders to shape product decisions and integrate cutting-edge ML models into our production systems.

Qualifications

• Extensive experience in backend software engineering, with a proven track record of designing, building, and maintaining complex, scalable, and business-critical systems.
• Deep proficiency in GoLang and/or Kotlin (preferably with the Spring framework).
• Strong, hands-on experience with containerization and orchestration technologies, particularly Kubernetes, and modern CI/CD practices (we use ArgoCD).
• Demonstrable experience with modern observability stacks and a data-driven approach to system health and performance (e.g., Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana).
• A high level of expertise in a particular platform, technology, or product category (e.g., search systems, distributed computing, ad-serving platforms) that brings unique business value.
• Proven ability to lead projects, mentor engineers, and drive technical strategy within a team or domain.
• Excellent communication skills and the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
• AI-assisted development experience and enthusiasm, leveraging coding agents like GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Claude Code, or similar tools is a significant plus.

Additional Information

• A €1000 annual L&D budget as well as individual coaching options to ensure you have plenty of opportunities to learn, grow and achieve your goals
• 26 days of vacation, +1 day every year up to a maximum of 30 days
• A mobility budget of 35 EUR per month for Deutschland Ticket subsidy
• A discount on your Urban Sports Club membership
• Attractive company pension options
• Unlimited access to an e-learning and development platform, MyAcademy, including online German courses
• Online discounts with Corporate Benefits and Future Bens
• A cool discount off your personal Flink orders; be the first to test out new products!
• A modern and dog-friendly office in the heart of Berlin - lots of delicious lunch spots available within short walking distance

It is our commitment that every applicant will be evaluated according to their skills regardless of age, gender identity, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability status, or religion.