Backend Software Engineer

About the role

**Job Overview**

DWELR is building a residential intelligence platform designed to make the rental housing market more transparent, accountable, and easier to navigate. Our platform brings together tenant\-submitted reports, verified residency information, property records, ownership and management data, municipal violations, supporting documents, remediation history, and AI\-powered analysis to help users better understand rental properties and housing conditions.

We are seeking a **Backend Software Engineer** to design, build, and scale the server\-side systems that power the DWELR platform. This role will focus on backend services, databases, APIs, data pipelines, authentication and authorization, third\-party integrations, application security, and platform reliability.

You will help develop the backend foundation supporting DWELR’s current consumer and property\-management workflows as well as future products, including **DWELR INDEX™ and DWELR INDEX AI™**. These products are intended to transform fragmented residential information into structured, evidence\-backed intelligence for renters, housing providers, government partners, institutional customers, and software developers.

Unlike a general full\-stack position, this role will concentrate primarily on the platform’s service and data layers. You will collaborate closely with front\-end engineers, data engineers, AI engineers, product contributors, and trust and safety personnel, but advanced front\-end development experience is not required.

This is an early\-stage startup role with meaningful technical ownership. You will help make architecture decisions, establish backend engineering standards, and take systems from initial design through testing, deployment, monitoring, and continued improvement.

**What You Will Work On**

Depending on company priorities and your areas of expertise, your work may include:

* Core backend services and APIs supporting the DWELR web and future mobile applications. * Rental\-property, landlord, property\-management company, ownership, and neighborhood data models. * Address normalization, property matching, duplicate detection, and entity\-resolution systems. * Tenant report, review, residency\-verification, evidence\-submission, and dispute workflows. * Landlord and property\-manager account claiming, identity verification, and portfolio\-management systems. * Public\-record and municipal\-data ingestion pipelines. * Systems for importing, validating, normalizing, reconciling, and updating property\-related records. * Scheduled jobs, background processing, queues, retries, and data\-refresh operations. * Search, filtering, indexing, full\-text search, geospatial queries, and map\-related data services. * Subscription, payment, billing, entitlement, and Stripe webhook systems. * Email, account, case\-status, and property\-monitoring notifications. * Trust and safety, moderation, audit\-log, case\-management, and internal administrative systems. * Evidence provenance and source\-tracking infrastructure. * The DWELR Evidence Graph and Residential Knowledge Graph. * Backend services supporting AI\-assisted search, retrieval, document analysis, summarization, and property intelligence. * Government, institutional, monitoring, data\-licensing, and developer API products. * Application monitoring, error reporting, security controls, logging, and operational tooling.

**Responsibilities**

* Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain backend services supporting DWELR’s applications and data products. * Build secure and well\-documented APIs for web applications, mobile applications, internal tools, third\-party integrations, and future institutional customers. * Develop server\-side functionality using technologies appropriate to DWELR’s current architecture, including TypeScript or JavaScript, serverless functions, edge services, and PostgreSQL. * Design and maintain PostgreSQL schemas, tables, relationships, constraints, indexes, functions, triggers, views, and migrations. * Write efficient SQL queries and investigate slow or resource\-intensive database operations. * Implement authentication, authorization, account permissions, role\-based access, and database\-level security controls. * Develop and maintain row\-level security policies where appropriate. * Build backend workflows for users, renters, landlords, property managers, moderators, administrators, government partners, and institutional customers. * Design reliable public\-record and third\-party data\-ingestion processes. * Create data\-validation and normalization rules that prevent incomplete, malformed, duplicated, or improperly associated records from entering production systems. * Develop address\-matching and entity\-resolution systems that accurately associate records with the correct property, owner, landlord, or property\-management company. * Build idempotent background processes that can safely retry interrupted or unsuccessful operations. * Implement scheduled tasks, queues, event\-driven workflows, webhook handlers, and asynchronous processing where appropriate. * Integrate external services such as Stripe, Google Maps Platform, geocoding providers, email services, notification providers, analytics systems, and municipal data sources. * Build and maintain Stripe checkout, subscription, billing, entitlement, and webhook functionality. * Create systems for tracking the origin, status, update time, and reliability of records used throughout the platform. * Maintain audit trails for sensitive actions, administrative decisions, data changes, disputes, and verification events. * Help establish backend infrastructure for the DWELR Evidence Graph and Residential Knowledge Graph. * Support AI and retrieval systems by providing structured, permission\-aware, source\-linked data services. * Work with AI and data contributors to ensure generated or calculated outputs can be connected to the appropriate underlying evidence. * Implement safeguards that prevent AI\-generated information from being treated as verified source data without appropriate validation. * Develop search, filtering, pagination, indexing, and caching systems that perform reliably as the platform’s data volume grows. * Apply rate limits, validation rules, access controls, and other protections to public and private APIs. * Protect sensitive user information, verification materials, account data, evidence, and internal administrative records. * Develop secure file and document metadata workflows, including access restrictions, retention rules, and deletion procedures. * Write unit, integration, database, and API tests for critical backend functionality. * Establish practical testing requirements for billing, permissions, disputes, verification, ingestion, and data\-modification workflows. * Participate in code reviews and help maintain consistent backend engineering standards. * Use Git\-based version control and pull\-request workflows to manage code changes. * Contribute to CI/CD processes that support reliable automated testing and deployment. * Monitor production services, investigate errors, diagnose incidents, and implement long\-term fixes. * Improve backend observability through structured logging, metrics, alerts, tracing, and operational dashboards. * Document APIs, database structures, data contracts, system behavior, dependencies, deployment procedures, and important technical decisions. * Collaborate with front\-end engineers to define stable API contracts and resolve integration issues. * Communicate technical risks, tradeoffs, implementation options, and blockers clearly to technical and nontechnical team members. * Help determine when a modular application, serverless service, background worker, queue, or separate service is the appropriate solution. * Avoid unnecessary architectural complexity while ensuring that critical systems can scale safely as DWELR grows.

**Required Qualifications**

* Professional experience building and maintaining backend systems for production web or software applications. * Strong proficiency in at least one modern backend programming language. * Experience with JavaScript or TypeScript in a Node.js, serverless, or comparable backend environment, or the ability to become productive in that environment quickly. * Strong understanding of relational databases and structured data modeling. * Experience working with PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQL Server, or a comparable relational database. * Ability to write, review, and optimize SQL queries. * Understanding of database constraints, relationships, indexes, migrations, transactions, and data\-integrity principles. * Experience designing and developing RESTful APIs. * Understanding of API authentication, authorization, validation, pagination, versioning, error handling, and rate limiting. * Experience implementing secure user authentication and role\- or permission\-based access controls. * Familiarity with asynchronous processing, scheduled tasks, background jobs, queues, webhooks, or event\-driven workflows. * Experience integrating external APIs and third\-party software services. * Understanding of secure software\-development practices, including input validation, least\-privilege access, secrets management, and protection of sensitive information. * Experience writing automated tests for backend services, APIs, or databases. * Familiarity with Git\-based source control and collaborative pull\-request workflows. * Experience deploying, monitoring, debugging, and maintaining production backend services. * Ability to diagnose problems involving application logic, APIs, databases, authentication, integrations, or infrastructure. * Strong problem\-solving and technical communication skills. * Ability to work effectively with front\-end, product, data, AI, design, and operations contributors. * Ability to take ownership of a backend feature or service from technical planning through production deployment and post\-launch support. * Ability to make practical engineering decisions in an early\-stage environment where requirements and priorities may evolve.

We value demonstrated technical ability and meaningful project experience. Candidates may qualify through professional employment, startup work, substantial independent projects, open\-source contributions, or another credible body of production\-oriented work.

**Preferred Qualifications**

Experience with any of the following would be beneficial but is not required:

* TypeScript or JavaScript backend development. * Node.js or comparable server\-side runtimes. * Supabase, including PostgreSQL, Supabase Auth, Storage, Edge Functions, database functions, and row\-level security. * Cloudflare Workers, Cloudflare Pages, edge computing, or comparable serverless platforms. * PostgreSQL extensions, full\-text search, vector search, geospatial data, or PostGIS. * Python for data processing, automation, retrieval, or AI\-related services. * Public\-record, government\-data, or third\-party\-data integrations. * ETL or ELT pipelines and recurring data\-ingestion processes. * Address normalization, record linkage, deduplication, entity resolution, or data reconciliation. * Processing large or inconsistent datasets from multiple external sources. * Background job systems, task queues, scheduled workers, or event\-driven architectures. * Stripe subscriptions, billing, entitlements, customer portals, and webhook integrations. * Google Maps Platform, geocoding, reverse geocoding, address autocomplete, or map\-based search. * Search engines, indexing systems, caching layers, or high\-volume filtering systems. * Knowledge graphs, evidence graphs, relationship modeling, or graph\-oriented data structures. * Retrieval\-augmented generation, embeddings, vector databases, structured model outputs, or AI\-service integrations. * Evidence provenance, source attribution, confidence metadata, or document\-processing systems. * Document storage, secure file access, metadata extraction, retention, and deletion workflows. * Applications involving user\-generated content, privacy\-sensitive data, identity verification, or evidence. * Moderation, trust and safety, dispute\-resolution, case\-management, or appeals systems. * Institutional APIs, API keys, usage metering, customer\-specific permissions, or data\-licensing products. * Observability platforms, structured logging, tracing, alerting, and incident response. * Infrastructure as code, automated deployments, and CI/CD pipelines. * Application security reviews, privacy engineering, or compliance\-readiness programs. * PropTech, GovTech, CivicTech, SaaS, public\-data, housing, real\-estate, or marketplace products. * Early\-stage startup experience.

**What Success Looks Like**

A successful Backend Software Engineer at DWELR will:

* Deliver complete and dependable backend systems rather than isolated code changes. * Build APIs that are understandable, consistent, secure, and easy for other engineers to use. * Create database structures that maintain data integrity as the platform grows. * Build ingestion pipelines that handle incomplete, inconsistent, duplicated, and changing source data safely. * Ensure important records remain connected to their sources, update history, and applicable evidence. * Improve the platform’s reliability, security, performance, and observability. * Identify permission, privacy, security, or data\-quality risks before they reach production. * Develop systems that fail predictably and can recover safely from interrupted operations. * Write code and documentation that future engineers can understand and maintain. * Make architecture decisions based on actual product and scale requirements rather than unnecessary complexity. * Communicate openly when technical debt, data limitations, or system constraints affect a proposed feature. * Help establish backend standards that support DWELR’s consumer, government, institutional, and AI\-powered products. * Balance rapid startup execution with the discipline required for housing\-related data and sensitive user workflows.

**Who This Role Is Best Suited For**

This position is best suited for an engineer who enjoys working deeply within application logic, databases, APIs, integrations, data pipelines, permissions, and production infrastructure.

The ideal candidate is interested in more than creating basic create\-read\-update\-delete endpoints. DWELR’s backend will need to determine how records relate to properties, owners, managers, reports, violations, documents, disputes, and changes over time. The role therefore requires thoughtful data modeling and an appreciation for data quality, provenance, security, and operational reliability.

You should be comfortable working in an early\-stage environment where you may help define the solution rather than receiving a fully specified technical document. You should also be willing to investigate unfamiliar datasets, external systems, and real\-world edge cases.

This is not primarily a front\-end position. Familiarity with browser applications and front\-end integration is helpful, but applicants are not expected to be advanced React, Angular, or Vue developers.

**Why Join DWELR**

Most renters are expected to make one of their largest monthly financial decisions without meaningful access to a property’s maintenance history, recurring complaints, public violations, ownership structure, management responsiveness, or other important signals.

DWELR is working to organize this fragmented information into structured, understandable, and evidence\-backed residential intelligence.

Backend engineering is central to that mission. The usefulness of DWELR will depend on whether the platform can securely collect information, associate it with the correct entities, preserve its source history, enforce appropriate permissions, and make it available through reliable products and APIs.

This role provides the opportunity to:

* Help build the technical foundation of an early\-stage technology company. * Influence backend architecture, data models, API standards, and engineering practices. * Work with consumer applications, public records, SaaS products, government workflows, institutional analytics, and AI\-assisted systems. * Build foundational systems rather than only maintaining mature legacy software. * Take meaningful ownership of production services and technical decisions. * Work on complex real\-world data and identity problems. * Help establish the infrastructure behind DWELR INDEX and DWELR INDEX AI. * Join the company before its planned geographic and product expansion. * Build technology intended to improve transparency and accountability in residential housing.

Pay: $101,322\.00 \- $126,108\.22 per year

Education:

* Bachelor's (Preferred)

Language:

* English (Required)

Ability to Commute:

* United States (Required)

Work Location: Remote