Software Development Engineer I (Backend)

Location: Gurugram, India

Department: Engineering

Experience: 1 - 3 Years

About GoKwik

Why This Role Matters

What You’ll Own

• Backend Development: Design, develop, test, and maintain backend services and REST APIs using Node.js and TypeScript.
• Feature Ownership: Take ownership of small-to-medium features from initial design and data modelling through implementation, testing, rollout, and post-release monitoring.
• API Design and Development: Build REST APIs with appropriate validation, error handling, pagination, status codes, and idempotent write operations.
• Database Design and Optimisation: Write efficient SQL queries, work with indexes and data models, analyse query execution plans, and identify opportunities to improve database performance.
• Multi-Tenant Data Management: Ensure that database queries, cache keys, APIs, and background jobs correctly scope data to the relevant merchant and maintain data isolation.
• Database Migrations: Implement schema changes and database migrations with guidance from senior engineers, ensuring safe execution and rollback options in production environments.
• Integrations and Background Processing: Develop third-party integrations and background jobs that handle retries, timeouts, API rate limits, and partial failures. Use queues and Redis where appropriate.
• Caching and Idempotency: Apply caching, queuing, and idempotency patterns to improve performance and ensure reliable processing when requests or jobs are retried.
• Production Monitoring and Debugging: Add structured logs, metrics, and traces to new code paths. Use application performance monitoring tools to investigate production issues and document root causes.
• AI-Assisted Development: Use AI coding tools such as Claude Code, Cursor, or GitHub Copilot for design, coding, testing, code review, and debugging. Validate generated code for correctness, security, and maintainability before deployment.
• AI and LLM-Based Features: Contribute to LLM-powered features, including prompt design, structured outputs, and tool calling, with guidance from senior engineers where required.
• Code Reviews and Collaboration: Review code, incorporate feedback, document technical decisions, and collaborate with other engineers to maintain code quality and engineering standards.

Who You Are

• Have 1–3 years of experience building production backend services using Node.js and TypeScript, including experience shipping and supporting at least one feature in production.
• Have a sound understanding of data structures, algorithms, problem-solving, and debugging fundamentals.
• Are comfortable writing SQL queries, using joins and indexes, reading query execution plans, and investigating slow queries.
• Understand multi-tenant architecture and the importance of correctly isolating merchant data across queries, caches, and background jobs.
• Have a practical understanding of caching, queues, retries, and idempotency, including how systems behave when requests fail or jobs execute more than once.
• Understand REST API design principles, including request validation, status codes, pagination, error handling, and idempotent writes.
• Use AI coding tools regularly and can evaluate generated code for correctness, security, test coverage, and maintainability.
• Have strong written communication skills and can document technical designs, pull requests, implementation decisions, and incident summaries.
• Take ownership of assigned features, communicate blockers early, seek clarification when requirements are ambiguous, and follow through after release.
• Are open to feedback, willing to learn from senior engineers, and committed to continuously improving your technical skills.

Why GoKwik