Senior Backend Software Engineer

At Catawiki, every day brings the extraordinary! Whether it’s Daniel Ricciardo’s Formula 1 Car, a Woolly Mammoth’s Skeleton, Lady Gaga's Jumpsuit or Usain Bolt’s running shoe, we encounter exceptional objects every day.

We’re a one-of-a-kind marketplace for buying and selling special objects. Each week, more than 100,000 unique items are auctioned, all carefully curated by our passionate in-house experts.

Having sold over 25 million unique objects, our mission is to become the world’s most popular destination for special objects. As a growing, diverse and sustainable scale-up, we proudly live by three core values. If these values resonate with you, we’d love to explore how you can join us.

• Taking ownership and driving impact
• Being open to change and feedback
• Being passionate about our mission and our customers.

How we work

As the biggest marketplace for special items, Catawiki operates in a domain that brings plenty of unusual challenges and opportunities. You will be developing, testing and scaling our microservices, mostly written in Ruby, to handle the high volume of requests served by the platform every single day. We do this by using Infrastructure as Code principles, collaborative peer-reviews, Continuous Delivery, A/B testing every assumption and using the observability and monitoring tools already in place. We make mistakes and learn valuable lessons from them. Our focus is to be able to recover and iterate quickly.

What you’ll do

Here at Catawiki, you will make an impact by improving and delivering product innovations for the Catawiki platform. Along with other members of the Development team, you will build scalable microservices while measuring and monitoring system performance. In addition, you will use experimentation, backed by data analysis, to add product features and deliver the best user experience on the platform.

What you’ll bring

We look for engineers who are motivated to learn new things, ship new features, and pursue new and interesting challenges. Our stack is mainly focused around Ruby, however, if you’re passionate about learning new things then prior experience with Ruby is not essential. Next to this:

• At least, 7+ years of experience in software development, in specific with OOP (object-oriented programming)
• You have experience in designing, implementing and deploying backend services with a focus on high availability, low latency, and consistency.
• You have proven experience of collaborating closely with other engineers to become a valued member of an autonomous, cross-functional team.
• You have mentored junior engineers and you enjoy cooperating with engineers throughout the company.
• You understand the value that you can add to the business, the product and the impact of your work on customers.
• You feel comfortable documenting RFCS and describing problems, opportunities, pros and cons of solution alternatives.

As a passionate engineer, you bring these values to Catawiki:

• You are a passionate experienced engineer with a strong eye for detail.
• You strive to be a great team player and don’t shy away from new challenges.
• You are comfortable in a startup environment and are ready to jump in and help if needed.
• You keep the company's values close to your heart and enjoy being in a diverse environment.

Where you’ll be

This role is based in Lisbon, Portugal. We also offer an excellent relocation package for people living outside of Portugal.

Why You'll Love Working with Us

• Create a visible impact by working at scale in a global organisation serving millions of customers across 80+ categories. In our flat structure, every role has a broad scope and directly impacts both our customers and the business.
• Learn and grow through our Learning & Development initiatives, including clear development plans and mentorship programmes to support your career progression.
• A culture of connection defines us. We’re a passionate, diverse team of 800+ Catawikians representing 60+ nationalities. We foster an inclusive and queer-friendly environment where everyone is encouraged to bring their full self to work.
• Celebrate life’s moments with us. You’ll receive a €100 Catavoucher when you join, a €50 Catavoucher on your birthday, and an extra day off each year to “Pursue Your Passion”. We also offer additional leave for key work anniversaries and important life events. Benefits may vary by location.

Our Offices and Way of Working

Our vibrant offices in Amsterdam, Paris and Lisbon are designed to inspire collaboration. Most Catawikians operate in a hybrid setup, combining office-based and remote work, with a minimum of two days per week in the office, unless a role is explicitly stated as fully remote or fully office-based.

Interested?

Apply with an English CV and Cover Letter. By applying, you agree to Catawiki’s Applicant Privacy Policy. If you’re excited about this role but don’t meet every requirement, we still encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.