Senior Backend Engineer (Django), High Ownership

Work & Travel Guide is a young, fast-growing startup. We are building a product that helps people discover the world... smarter, simpler, and radically better than anything available today. But this is about more than features. We are building the **infrastructure for freedom.** For people who do not want to travel someday, but now. You will join at a stage where your decisions will make a real difference: **Maximum impact:** You will work on core systems across backend, frontend, architecture, and deployments - the systems that support both the product and the company. **Fast-growing responsibility:** If you deliver, your scope will grow quickly. You can move from owning individual components to leading architecture, owning processes, and eventually helping build a team. With enough commitment, your path can go very far. You will work closely with the CTO. Short communication lines, fast decisions, and real technical leadership. **Backend & APIs - Django (main focus)** * Build and continuously improve backend systems and APIs in Django. * Take ownership of architecture decisions around scalability, reliability, and maintainability. **Frontend - React (experience with any other frontend technology is fine)** * Build features in the React frontend, including UI, state management, and backend integration. * Improve performance and developer experience. * Design clean interfaces between frontend and backend. **Engineering Excellence** * Implement and improve CI/CD pipelines and deployment workflows. * Consistently apply clean code, design patterns, and strong system design principles. * Refactor larger parts of the codebase to improve long-term maintainability, using modern tools such as Claude Code. * Systematically expand testing and QA, including unit, integration, and end-to-end testing depending on the area. **AI-supported Productivity** * Actively use and improve AI-assisted development workflows to iterate faster, increase quality, and automate repetitive work. * Strong experience in backend development. Some frontend experience in any framework is preferred. * Excellent backend skills, especially with Django, APIs, and data models. * Solid understanding of architecture, design patterns, and clean code principles. * Hands-on experience with CI/CD, including build pipelines, tests, deployments, and release processes. * Strong testing and QA practices. * Familiarity with modern toolchains and workflows, including AI-assisted development. **Bonus** Experience with Go and/or Rust, or strong curiosity to learn them, as we plan to expand parts of the system in that direction over time. * **100% remote option**, or work from our office in Frankfurt, Germany — whatever you prefer. * **High autonomy and ownership**: you influence decisions and build end-to-end. * **Direct collaboration with the CTO**: short feedback loops, fast decisions, and real technical leadership. * **Your ideas matter**: small team, big impact, fast iteration. * **Retreats and workations**: you are invited to come join us for workations in interesting and inspiring places all around the world regularly * **Strong engineering culture**: clean architecture, code reviews, testing, and observability. * **AI at the core**: modern AI tooling stacks, used only where they truly make sense. * **Stock option program** for employees who stand out through exceptional talent and commitment. We accept applications exclusively via email to **tech \[at\] workandtravelguide .org**