[Remote] Senior Backend Engineer, Data Systems

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Code Metal is redefining code translation for mission-critical industries, helping defense partners move more quickly and reliably from algorithm to silicon. They are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer, Data Systems to design and build the core data foundations of their platform, focusing on relational data models and backend services.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve relational data models that represent complex domain concepts, entities, relationships, and workflows
• Build and maintain SQL schemas, constraints, indexes, migrations, and query patterns that support scalable backend systems
• Define and enforce data contracts between services, APIs, ingestion pipelines, and downstream consumers
• Develop ingestion and normalization workflows for structured, semi-structured, and external source data
• Move business logic from ad hoc application code into well-modeled, extensible data structures, including:
• Configurable rules
• Eligibility or feasibility checks
• Mappings and lookup tables
• Domain-specific constraints
• Decision logic represented in data
• Partner with product, domain experts, and engineers to convert ambiguous or evolving requirements into clear data abstractions
• Build backend services and APIs that expose, validate, and operate on these data models
• Improve the consistency, traceability, and maintainability of data across the system
• Help establish patterns for:
• Versioned data models
• Schema governance
• Data validation
• Audit-ability
• Backward-compatible contracts
• Participate in architecture discussions and code reviews, especially where data modeling decisions have long-term consequences

Skills

• Strong professional experience as a backend software engineer working on production systems
• Deep experience with relational databases, especially PostgreSQL or similar systems
• Strong ability to design: normalized schemas, associative/relationship tables, constraints and validation logic, enum / lookup models, lifecycle-aware data structures
• Strong SQL skills, including: complex joins, aggregation, CTEs, views or materialized views where appropriate, query performance awareness
• Experience defining or working with data contracts between services, APIs, and persistence layers
• Experience building or maintaining data ingestion, transformation, or normalization workflows
• Ability to reason carefully about business rules, edge cases, and how domain logic should be represented in software
• Strong programming ability in Python
• Experience working with ORMs and migration frameworks such as: SQLAlchemy, Alembic, or comparable tools
• Strong communication skills and comfort collaborating with engineers, product stakeholders, and domain experts
• Experience designing rule-driven systems, policy engines, feasibility checks, or configuration-driven business logic
• Experience deciding when logic belongs in: application code, SQL/database structures, rules tables, services or domain layers
• Experience modeling complex operational domains such as: simulations, logistics, planning systems, geospatial systems, defense, aerospace, or other highly structured data environments
• Experience with: PostGIS or geospatial data, event-driven systems, versioned datasets or snapshots, data lineage / provenance, imported external datasets with inconsistent or incomplete source quality
• Familiarity with API schema design and typed contracts, such as: Pydantic, JSON Schema, protobuf or similar tools, OpenAPI

Benefits

• Pay depends on experience, but we strive to be at the upper end of the salary range
• Health care plan with 100% premium coverage, including medical, dental, and vision
• 401k with 5% matching
• Paid Time Off (uncapped vacation, plus sick and public holidays)
• Flexible hybrid or remote work arrangement
• Relocation assistance for qualifying employees

Company Overview