Senior Backend Engineer

Senior Backend Engineer at blockworks
Senior Backend Engineer
Department: Engineering
Location: New York
Compensation: $190K – $210K
Employment Type: FullTime
About Us:
Ironwood Digital is an information platform that sits at the center of the crypto industry. We transform raw, complex data and facts into actionable research, trusted alpha-driven insights, and world-class events. The result is transparency and confidence. Ironwood Digital connects investors and businesses in onchain capital markets. We give businesses a platform to earn trust and provide investors with the information they need to underwrite the asset class.
Who You Are:
You have a keen focus on backend and API development and Software engineering is your passion. You are a player-coach and a natural leader who understands the technical and human elements that go into great software design. You have a results-oriented attitude and a passion for delivering flawless releases and developing digital product pipelines (CI/CD pipelines). You have a proven track record facilitating engineering teams to increase productivity and quality.
You're excited at the possibility of being on the ground floor of the design and development of backend strategies. You bring a passion for designing and maintaining scalable API services that handle large amounts of data elegantly. You love moving quickly in a fast-paced start-up, but you also bring intentionality, sustainability and scalability to your approach as an engineer.
What You’ll Do:
As a Senior Backend Engineer at Ironwood Digital, you’ll design, build, and maintain the systems that power our products end-to-end. From high-performance APIs to database architecture, you’ll own the backend layer that makes everything else possible.
You won’t just be handed requirements, you’ll help define them, scope projects, and make the architectural decisions that shape our technical foundation. Your work will directly impact our research platform (blockworksresearch.com) and our media site (blockworks.co; 1M+ monthly active users).
Every day will look a little different, but in general, you will do things like:
– Architect, build, and ship backend systems that can scale to millions of requests/day
– Design, implement, and optimize APIs that power our research and media products
– Own database design, optimization, and reliability (MySQL/Postgres)
– Implement caching and performance strategies with Redis or similar tools
– Lead backend feature development from planning to production release
– Diagnose and resolve scalability, performance, and reliability issues under real-world load
– Raise the bar on testing, monitoring, and observability across the stack
– Collaborate with frontend, product, and data teams to ensure seamless integrations
Experimentation is frequent at Ironwood Digital. Comfortability with being uncomfortable is a must.
What You’ve Done Before:
We value backend engineers who think holistically about systems, anticipate edge cases, and bring a balance of speed and rigor to shipping code.
You have a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field (or equivalent work experience), and at least 5 years of professional experience as a Backend Engineer with a strong focus on backend development and architecture using TypeScript and Node.js. You’ve built fast, reliable API endpoints capable of handling over 1M requests per day, and you bring a mature approach to automated testing, monitoring, and observability.
You’re highly proficient in designing and optimizing relational databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL, including data modeling and query optimization, and you know how to enhance performance and scalability through caching mechanisms like Redis. You’re skilled at troubleshooting and problem-solving in fast-paced environments, familiar with DevOps practices, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment tools, and you collaborate effectively across teams. Above all, you have strong attention to detail and pride yourself on writing clean, maintainable, and reusable code.
It’d Be Great If You’ve Done This:
It’d be great if you’ve worked with frameworks like NestJS and database access layers such as TypeORM, and have experience supporting legacy migrations in PHP. Familiarity with AWS cloud infrastructure, exposure to ML/AI models, and hands-on experience in the crypto space are all strong pluses.
Salary, Benefits, & How We Work:
This is a full time exempt position with an expected salary of $190,000 to $210,000/year.
Benefits:
Remote-First:
We're a remote-first organization with an office in NYC for you to utilize as you please.
100% Medical Coverage for You:
Close to fully paid medical, dental, and vision insurance for you, and a significant portion covered for your dependents.
Flexible PTO:
We have a flexible paid time off policy that doesn't limit the number of vacation days you can take.
Parental Leave:
At Ironwood Digital, all team members are eligible for 14 weeks of fully paid parental leave.
Hardware Stipend:
Every team member has a stipend to use to purchase the tools and technology that help them be their most productive.
Learning & Growth Stipend:
Every team member has a stipend to spend on their skill growth and professional development.
Career Growth:
We prioritize skill growth and career development, and we have a clear, documented structure to take the guesswork out of individual development and career progression
Global & Diverse Team:
We're a global team, and we're committed to creating an open, inclusive, and diverse work culture
Come build with us; we're just getting started!
We know that diversity makes for the best problem-solving and creative thinking. We are dedicated to adding new perspectives to the team and encourage everyone to apply if your experience is close to what we are looking for.
Ironwood Digital is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.
This employer participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm work authorization.