Lead Backend Engineer - Personalization (all genders)
About You SE & Co. KG4 days ago
Hamburg, Germany or Berlin, GermanyStaff+
Responsibilities
- Own complex backend systems in Search, Recommendations, or Sorting from concept through production.
- Shape architecture for high-throughput, low-latency personalization services and evolve the area’s technical foundations.
- Build and operate systems combining ML models, search and ranking algorithms, behavioral signals, and business logic.
- Make architectural decisions across team boundaries and establish standards for scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
- Collaborate with Data Scientists, Data Engineers, Analysts, and Product Managers on data-driven product improvements.
- Mentor engineers, share expertise, and raise technical standards across teams.
- Explore new technologies and improve engineering and operational practices.
Requirements
- 7+ years of experience building scalable backend systems and APIs with a strong record of technical ownership.
- Recent practical experience with a typed programming language, ideally Node.js/TypeScript, or strong experience with Java, Go, or Kotlin.
- Deep understanding of backend architecture, distributed systems, APIs, data stores, and performance optimization.
- Strong algorithmic and analytical thinking with interest in search, recommendations, ranking, or personalization.
- Experience connecting backend engineering with ML in production, such as serving model scores, embeddings, or ML-driven features.
- Ability to make architectural decisions, challenge existing approaches, and establish engineering standards across teams.
- Strong English communication and collaboration skills with engineering, data, and product stakeholders.
- Nice-to-have experience in Search, Recommender Systems, Ranking, Personalization, Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, Redis/Valkey, high-throughput APIs, ML-powered systems, LLMs, embeddings, vector search, Learning-to-Rank, large-scale systems, AWS, GCP, BigQuery, dbt, Dagster, or relevant e-commerce and advertising domains.
Benefits
- Benefits are provided through the company benefits page.
- The company emphasizes an inclusive, accepting workplace and welcomes different backgrounds and perspectives.
- The role is based within ABOUT YOU’s Hamburg and Berlin operations; practical work arrangement is not otherwise specified.
- Company culture includes flat hierarchies, direct communication, pragmatic decisions, team lunches, afterwork drinks, company events, and informal coffee breaks.
Tech Stack
Categories
About About You SE & Co. KG
ABOUT YOU SE & Co. KG operates an online fashion marketplace for European consumers and licenses commerce technology to brands via its SCAYLE platform. The group sells apparel and lifestyle products through its mobile app and aboutyou.com, and offers a cloud-based enterprise shop system under a license model to retailers. Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Hamburg, it is a publicly listed company.