About Hornet

Hornet is the world's leading queer tech company, providing a digital home for gay men to safely connect with each other — anytime, anywhere.

With over 100 million users worldwide, Hornet empowers the LGBTQ+ community through products including the Hornet app, Hornet Live, and HornetX. Our diverse global team brings together different perspectives, experiences, and incredible talent to build products that truly serve our community.

About the Role

As Hornet's user base grows, we are looking for a Lead Backend Developer to help us scale our backend API — in two senses.

The first is scale in the literal sense: keeping our API fast and reliable as we grow, using your experience to plan out backend services, and working with our DevOps engineers to shape and build on top of the existing infrastructure in AWS.

The second is scaling the team's output: facilitating the development of backend features by architecting, implementing, and reviewing the code written by the backend team.

This is a hands-on lead role. You'll spend most of your time in the codebase, but you'll also set technical direction, mentor the backend engineers, and be the person the rest of the team turns to when something is hard, unclear, or on fire. You'll work closely with the Head of Engineering as well as the backend, DevOps, and client (iOS, Android, and web) engineers.

We prefer you already have a familiarity with Hornet and the LGBTQ+ community, and are looking for the chance to make meaningful changes that push the space forward.

What You'll Do

Scale & Reliability

Own the performance, availability, and cost-efficiency of Hornet's API as the userbase grows
Plan and build out backend services, and partner with our DevOps engineers on the AWS infrastructure they run on — evolving what exists rather than rewriting it
Diagnose and fix production issues — from slow endpoints to capacity problems — and work with DevOps on the monitoring, alerting, and runbooks that stop them recurring
Plan ahead for load together with DevOps: capacity planning, data-store scaling (Postgres, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Redis), and graceful degradation

Architecture & Technical Direction

Design future versions of our API and the services behind it, with maintainability and our lean team size at the fore
Write technical specs for larger features and break them down into work the team can pick up
Make, document, and defend decisions on server-side architecture
Keep the tech stack deliberate: introduce new technology when it earns its place, and retire what no longer does

Leading the Backend Team

Architect, implement, and review the code the backend team writes — you'll be a primary reviewer on pull requests
Mentor backend engineers, growing both their skills and their ownership
Set and uphold standards for code quality, testing, and deployment so we move fast without accumulating problems
Deploy and monitor completed features to production, and work with DevOps to keep improving the deployment process

Working Across the Team

Collaborate with iOS, Android, and web engineers to decide how APIs should work and to unblock user-facing features
Partner with our DevOps engineers on infrastructure, deployments, and scaling.
Work with the Head of Engineering and product on roadmap, priorities, and technical trade-offs
Explain complex technical topics clearly and concisely to engineers and non-engineers alike

What We're Looking For

Required

Deep expertise in backend development — years of building, scaling, and operating server-side systems, and the ability to become productive in a new stack quickly
Experience building, scaling, and operating high-traffic server-side APIs, and you can point to your work
Working knowledge of AWS and how production infrastructure is run — enough to design services that operate well and to partner effectively with DevOps
A solid grounding in relational and non-relational data stores and caching, and an understanding of how they behave under load
A track record of leading technical work: designing systems, reviewing code, and raising the quality of a team's output
Strong communication skills — you can explain complex technical topics to the entire team in a clear and concise way
You create clarity and make things happen even when the work is fuzzy
When something inevitably breaks, you eagerly jump in to diagnose and fix the core issue
You take responsibility for your work and deliver production-ready quality
You think critically about your work and ask questions to improve the product — not only its technical implementation, but how well it serves our users
You feel comfortable working in a fully remote, distributed team

Nice to Have

Experience with Ruby and Ruby on Rails — our stack is Ruby, but a strong backend engineer will get up to speed
Experience with Elasticsearch, Cassandra, Postgres, Redis/Valkey, or Sidekiq
Previous experience in a startup or a lean engineering team
Experience mentoring or line-managing engineers
Experience with the backend side of mobile apps: push notifications, in-app purchases and subscriptions, real-time messaging
Experience with CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and observability tooling
Familiarity with Hornet and the LGBTQ+ community

Our Tech Stack

We run a mix of technologies in our stack, each chosen for a purpose and cognizant of the lean size of our team, keeping maintainability at the fore.

Core technologies include Ruby on Rails, Postgres, Cassandra, Elasticsearch, Redis, Sidekiq, and more than an average dose of AWS services.

Exposure to some of the technologies above would be beneficial but not required.

Why Hornet

Help shape products used by millions worldwide.
Be part of our mission to provide a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community.
Work with a diverse, inclusive, and mission-driven global team.
Enjoy the flexibility of a fully remote workplace, with engineering hubs in Prague and Cape Town if you like to head to an office.
Quarterly product/engineering meetups in person, and an annual all-Team Hornet gathering in attractive locations.
A long-term contract with monthly invoicing.
Grow alongside talented colleagues who care deeply about what they build.

How to Apply

Please submit:

Your CV
GitHub, LinkedIn, or links to backend systems you've built or scaled
A short motivation letter — a few sentences on why you're interested in this role and in Hornet
Additional references, if available

We are looking forward to hearing from you! Do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Interview Process

Intro Call
Hiring Manager Interview — with the Head of Engineering
Technical Deep-Dive — a system design and architecture conversation, plus a walk through code you've written or reviewed
Team Interviews — meet the backend and client engineers you'd be working with
Final Conversation

Our Commitment to Inclusion

Hornet is proud to foster a workplace free from discrimination. We believe diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives create stronger teams, better products, and a more inclusive community.

We encourage people of all backgrounds, identities, and experiences to apply—even if you don't meet every qualification listed. If you're excited about the role, we'd love to hear from you.