Senior Backend Engineer
Sydney or Remote, AU
Engineering /
Full-time /
Remote
Join Atomi: Innovate, empower and inspire in the Edtech world.
Our mission is to help unlock the world’s potential by optimising the way we teach and learn. With a unique blend of technology and creativity, we bring learning to life, making complex concepts simple and accessible to students, educators, and parents alike.
We’re a team driven by our core values: a deep-rooted passion for learning, a relentless pursuit of quality at speed, humility in our growth, a commitment to pushing boundaries, empowering others fearlessly and championing the needs of our customers. Our culture is built on these values, ensuring we stay agile, innovative and empathetic to the evolving needs of the education community.
At Atomi, you’ll be encouraged to think creatively, work collaboratively and contribute to a mission where every piece of work is a step towards realising our collective potential in classrooms and beyond.
The opportunity
We're looking for a Senior Backend Developer who can help us build better tools for teachers and students. At Atomi, we're working to improve how people teach and learn, and we need someone who can deliver thoughtful, scalable backend solutions that make a real impact in the classroom. In this role, you'll collaborate with a passionate team to create reliable systems and services—while continuing to grow as a backend specialist.
We’re looking for someone who understands how solid backend engineering underpins great product experiences and learning outcomes. You'll lead improvements in system design, data architecture, and performance—helping us deliver real value to classrooms around the world.
This is a fully remote position, allowing you to work from anywhere in Australia. Our headquarters is located in Ultimo, Sydney, and you're welcome to work there whenever you'd like.
What You'll Do
- Design, build and maintain backend systems and services that power our platform, ranging from content delivery to classroom management and analytics
- Extend and evolve our backend stack, currently built in PHP (Laravel) with a longer-term transition towards NestJS
- Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and fellow engineers to deliver thoughtful, scalable backend solutions
- Work with relational and non-relational databases, including MySQL and DynamoDB
- Contribute to our GraphQL federation strategy and help integrate backend services into a unified API layer
- Ensure performance, scalability, testing, and reliability are first-class concerns in everything you build
- Mentor mid-level and junior engineers, helping them grow while leading by example
What You'll Bring to Atomi
- Proven experience as a Senior Backend Developer, ideally within a fast-moving product or SaaS environment
- Deep expertise in backend development using modern frameworks and tools
- Experience with NestJS and/or PHP (Laravel or similar). Proficiency in one is essential; experience with both is highly desirable
- Solid understanding of relational databases (MySQL) and exposure to NoSQL solutions like DynamoDB
- Experience building and maintaining scalable APIs; familiarity with federated GraphQL is a strong plus
- A focus on writing clean, maintainable code with an emphasis on performance, testing, and long-term maintainability
- A pragmatic mindset—you're just as comfortable diving into legacy code as you are planning for future architecture
Working at Atomi
- Tailored flexibility: Enjoy work-life balance with hours that adapt to your needs, whether for university, family or personal time.
- Generous leave: Experience unlimited paid leave options as a permanent team member.
- Location Independence: Work from Sydney, interstate or wherever you find inspiration.
- Growth and development: Use ongoing opportunities to improve your skills and expand your knowledge.
- Holistic wellbeing: Benefit from a comprehensive employee assistance program subscription and additional wellbeing leave, supporting your best self.
- Parental support: Enjoy 14 weeks of paid leave for new parents, with additional leave specifically for birthing parents.
- Work with the best: We know you want to work alongside the best, so we work hard to hire only the best.
- Regular social in-person and remote events: Including team sports competitions, trivia nights and themed annual events.
- Atomi access: Enjoy free Atomi services for you and your family.
- Onsite teams: Our Sydney office is ideally located in a central setting with cafes, shops and public transport nearby.
How to apply
We’d like to understand who you are, your values and your professional journey. Please apply with your resume, a link to your portfolio and any insights you’d like to share.
We embrace diversity. Bringing together a variety of thoughts, backgrounds, and expressions is key to creating outstanding products and teams. We value many different skills and perspectives and how they can enhance Atomi and our culture. So, please apply even if you don’t meet every requirement listed.
Please note: All applicants must hold Australian working rights.
