Senior Backend Engineer

acemate is building an AI learning & teaching platform for higher and further education institutions. We have strong traction, secured funding and are entering an exciting growth phase. We're looking for a passionate Senior Backend Engineer / Developer to drive our product forward and help us scale.

About acemate

Founded in 2024, acemate has quickly become the leading AI learning platform for higher and further education, trusted by top-tier institutions across four countries, including University of Cologne, WHU and the German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (IHKs).

• Our Mission: Democratizing access to personalized learning. We don’t believe that AI will replace educators. Instead, we empower them to design and deliver personalized learning experiences at scale.
• Our Growth: We've raised pre-seed funding and are growing rapidly. While we focus on higher and further education in the DACH area today, we're already expanding into new regions and markets.
• Our Culture: We’re a young, driven team passionate about tackling the toughest challenges in education. We embrace builder culture and minimize scheduled meetings for ad-hoc discussions and maximized focus on coding and creating.

Tasks

What You'll Be Doing

As a Backend Engineer on our core team, you'll play a major role in shaping our technical strategy and overall architecture. We are giving you total ownership over the foundational systems powering our product. On any given day, you might be designing database schemas from scratch, building out API responses, or setting up dashboards for observability.

• End-to-end system ownership: You build it, you run it. You'll handle the complete engineering lifecycle—from the initial API design and data modeling, all the way to deploying and tracking it in production. A big part of this is continuously improving our core architecture so our Effect & TypeScript codebase remains highly maintainable, type-safe, and rock-solid.
• Go beyond simple endpoints: You'll handle the most challenging technical work on our platform. Rather than just hooking up basic CRUD routes, you will design advanced AI pipelines, intricate authorization logic, and complex asynchronous workflows to actually solve hard user problems.

Example projects you might take on:

• A bulletproof authorization engine designed to handle complex permission models across various institutional setups using a combination of ABAC and ReBac
• Advanced AI pipelines that extract text and visual data from documents via multiple models, mapping the resulting concepts straight into knowledge graphs
• Core architecture migration transitioning our backend off a fullstack monolith and onto a strictly type-safe API layer powered by Effect

Tech Stack:

• Backend: Effect.ts, Hono, oRPC, Bun, Typescript
• Database: PostgreSQL (via Supabase)
• Infrastructure: Cloudflare (Workers, Workflows, R2, KV, Hyperdrive), Google Cloud (Gemini, Cloud Run)
• Tooling: Axiom, Sentry, PostHog, Langfuse, Stripe
• AI: Vercel AI SDK

Don't worry if you aren't familiar with every single tool on this list from day one. We trust you to pick things up quickly and embrace modern frameworks as we grow.

Requirements

What We're Looking For

• 2+ years of software engineering experience with strong TypeScript skills
• Startup experience: You’re comfortable in fast-paced, evolving environments
• Balanced AI approach: You knew how to code before Cursor and Claude Code, but understand how to leverage them effectively
• Product passion: High identification with our mission to transform education
• Bonus: Experience with authz systems, infra/devops, AI, or frontend work (Next.js/React)

Benefits

Benefits

• Competitive salary package with equity component
• Fully covered Deutschlandticket
• BusinessBike (bike or e-bike via leasing, also for private use )
• Working in a small but driven team built around performance and learning
• Flexible environment with high degree of autonomy
• Frequent team events and acemate parties! 🥳

acemate builds AI-native learning infrastructure for modern education. Our platform transforms existing learning content such as scripts, books, slides and training materials into interactive learning experiences, including AI tutors, exercises, flashcards, mind maps and learning analytics.

We work with students, universities, private education providers and institutions across Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Today, acemate is used by more than 30 higher education institutions and by the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK), bringing AI-supported learning from higher education into professional education.