Golang Job: Back End Engineer

About Tandem

Tandem is the leading global language learning community, where 18 million members in over 180 countries practice languages together. The concept of learning from each other is not only an integral part of the Tandem community but it is also at the heart of our everyday lives at Tandem. This shared connection through learning helps us to grow and enhances the language journeys of our members.

We are based in Berlin and are backed by top European investors. We are highly international and driven by a shared passion for languages, technology, and culture. Together, we are on a mission to build a product that not only teaches a new skill but also encourages meaningful cross-cultural conversations.

Your role will be to:

As a Backend Engineer, you will work within Tandem’s next-generation team, alongside Android, iOS and web engineers, a designer and our infrastructure lead. You will collaborate closely with teammates from our backend engineering group and report to Tandem’s Head of Engineering.

The next-generation team is working on a platform modernisation process that transitions us from our current PHP backend to a new micro service / event driven architecture written in Golang.

This role would suit an engineer who enjoys building and maintaining a wide range of customer facing features that impact millions of users and who would like to broaden their horizons and accelerate their professional development.

Daily Duties

• Work with the technical leadership to design, develop and maintain Tandem’s target architecture. (service map, technical principles and documentation).
• Ensure that new services are built in-line with the above target architecture.
• Proactively look for opportunities to utilise technology to address customer needs.
• Work alongside our Community team to develop the features that keep our community safe.
• Perform code reviews and work as part of an all-call rota.
• Dedicate 20% of their time to reducing bugs in our application stack (bugs board).

You are the right fit for the role if you:

• 2+ years of development experience using Golang
• 3+ years experience with Amazon Web Services
• Have worked on code modernisation projects, specifically monolith to micro services.
• Experience with High-Load or Data-Intensive applications
• Experience with monitoring and logging tools e.g. Grafana, Prometheus, NewRelic
• Have a passion for modern DevOPS practices (CI / CD / Containerisation )
• Strong Documentation / Presentation / Communication skills
• Strong problem solving / debugging skills
• Ability to work unsupervised
• Have a passion for learning about the latest technologies balanced with pragmatic approach to their implementation

What would make your application stand out:

• Experience building realtime chat services
• Experience building apps that handle realtime media (audio / video)
• You are a polyglot and know one of more of the following (PHP, Python, Golang, Kotlin, Swift)

The benefits

Passion for languages
We’re a team of 33 people speaking 24 languages fluently between us. For those wanting to improve their German (or Denglisch!), you can join one of our German classes on us.

Take a deep dive
As a Tandem team member, we’ll give you a budget for up to 6 “Deep Dive Days” per year. Pick a topic you’ve always wanted to explore for your professional development that has never made it out of your backlog. Then book a cabin in the woods or whatever matches your individual learning style.

Teams who train together, stay together
We offer Urban Sports Club gym memberships to boost our team’s physical and mental health. If you prefer, we can contribute to your monthly public transport ticket instead.

It takes a team to Tandem
Bonding with our teammates outside of our normal work routine is important to us. We organize regular team events: from day trips to regular lunches, to Friday beers, summer BBQs, and board games.

Balance matters
Life isn’t just about work. We know when to snooze Slack notifications, recharge our batteries, and take time out for our personal hobbies. As we’re mostly working from home right now, it’s even more important to be able to switch off from work and relax.

Modern family
As part of our family-friendly company philosophy, we embrace flexible working hours, welcome families to our events, and love for our kids to visit the office and get a taste of life at Tandem.

Relocation without the stress
If you’re looking to relocate to Berlin, we’re ready to assist you with the infamous German bureaucracy. Many of us have been through it before, so we have plenty of tips to share. You’ll feel settled in no time.

One size doesn´t fit all
Nowadays, we’re all about a flexible and modern approach to working. Whether you’d like to work from our office in the heart of Berlin-Mitte, from the comfort of your home, or even a mixture of both, we’ll contribute to your work setup.