About Tandem
Tandem is the leading global language learning community, where more than 30 million members from over 200 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.
Your Role
We are looking for an entrepreneurial Backend Lead (PHP / Go) to join our team here in Berlin. Your role will be to help us make the shift from a monolithic architecture to a modern, microservices-based system - from legacy PHP to Golang microservices - in a high traffic environment.
Responsibilities
- Lead & Mentor: Guide and support a small but mighty team of 3 to 4 backend engineers, helping them grow and do their best work.
- Shape the Tech Strategy: Work closely with our CTO to design and implement backend architecture, with a focus on transitioning from monolith to microservices.
- Stay Hands-On: Review PRs, write high-quality code, and set the bar for best practices.
- Collaborate Across Teams: Work with Client Engineers, Product, Design, and Marketing to make sure our backend aligns with business goals and delivers a top-notch experience.
- Scale & Optimize: Build and maintain distributed, high-traffic systems that run fast and smooth for millions of users.
- Own DevOps & Infra: Manage cloud deployments (AWS/Azure), keep CI/CD pipelines running, and champion Infrastructure as Code.
- Drive Innovation: Help us make smart tech choices, improve processes, and keep learning as a team.
Requirements
- 6+ years of experience in software engineering, ideally in a startup or scale-up where you've seen some serious growth.
- Strong skills in PHP and Go.
- Experience scaling distributed systems and integrating microservices with older codebases.
- Cloud know-how—you've deployed and maintained production workloads on AWS or Azure and have a solid DevOps mindset.
- Play well with others: You've worked cross-functionally with Client Engineers, Product, Design, and Marketing teams and can explain technical stuff without the jargon overload.
- Natural leadership skills: Even if you haven't had an official leadership role yet, you've mentored others, led initiatives, or driven change in past roles.
Benefits
- Passion for languages: We're a team of 30 people speaking 20 languages fluently between 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.
- Teams who train together, stay together: We offer Urban Sports Club gym memberships to boost our team's physical and mental health.
- It takes a team to Tandem: We organize regular team events, from day trips to monthly lunches, summer BBQs, and movie nights.
- Balance matters: We know when to snooze Slack notifications, recharge our batteries, and take time out for our personal hobbies.
- Flexible working: We focus on a hybrid approach—balancing time between our vibrant Berlin-Mitte office and the comfort of your home.