Principal Backend Engineer - AI assisted development champion

Summary

At Trengo, we are at a pivotal moment in our engineering journey. We've built a robust platform that is serving thousands of customers and processing millions of messages, but we recognize the need to evolve our architecture and development practices to reach the next level of scale, performance, and innovation – particularly in the realm of AI.

This is where YOU come in!

We are seeking a highly motivated and experienced Principal Backend Engineer (we’re also open for Senior candidates) who is not only a deeply skilled technical expert but also a passionate advocate and practitioner of AI-assisted development. You will be instrumental in driving significant positive change within our engineering team, helping us overcome our challenges and unlock our full potential. This role is designed for an individual ready to contribute at a high level, taking ownership and demonstrating leadership qualities, with the specific level of seniority (Senior or Principal) to be determined based on the candidate's experience and demonstrated competencies.

At Trengo, we believe in a world where technology empowers the relationship between companies and their customers. That’s why our mission is to build an AI-powered customer engagement platform to replace repetitive work with meaningful conversations. How do we do that? Our software makes it easy for customer-facing teams to communicate with customers via multiple channels, all in one shared inbox. Email, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, live-chat, you name it. With a Series A investment of $36M led by Insight Partners and Peak Capital and becoming one of the four official WhatsApp Business Solutions Providers in the Netherlands, we empower our customers to scale their businesses and optimize the channels their clients truly prefer.

What the roles looks like

As our AI-assisted development champion, you will:

Drive Technical Transformation:

• Lead code-level improvements in our monolith and AI integrations, utilizing AI assistance to enhance code quality, performance, and development speed.

• Champion performance optimization and contribute to architectural evolution towards a scalable system.

Evangelize & Educate on AI-Assisted Development:

• Be the in-house expert on AI-assisted development, evaluating tools and educating the engineering team through workshops and mentorship.

• Foster a culture of continuous learning and experimentation with AI in engineering.

Lead Cross-Functional Collaboration & Impact:

• Proactively collaborate with Product, UX, and stakeholders to shape solutions, ensuring technical feasibility and user-centric design.

• Drive cross-functional innovation, identifying AI-driven opportunities for business growth and strategic alignment.

• Champion quality across engineering, promoting best practices and driving significant improvements.

• Provide technical mentorship and ensure team alignment with product strategy.

What you bring

• Deep Backend Engineering Proficiency: Extensive experience in backend development within our tech stack (PHP/Laravel, Node.js, etc.).

• Strong Architecture & Design Skills: Ability to analyze complex systems and design scalable solutions.

• Performance Optimization Expertise: Proven track record in resolving performance issues.

• Solid AI/ML & LLM Foundation: Strong understanding of AI/ML principles and LLMs. Hands-on RAG experience. Experience/interest in Agentic AI development (agent design, planning, tool use).

• LLMOps Proficiency: Knowledge of LLM lifecycle management (monitoring, scaling, etc.).

• LLM Framework Familiarity: Experience with LangChain, LangSmith (desirable).

• Cloud Environment Expertise: Comfortable with cloud platforms.

• Database Expertise: Experience with relational (MySQL, PlanetScale) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Neo4j) databases.

• Modern Messaging & Event-Driven Architecture Expertise: Experience with message brokers, pub/sub, and event-driven systems.

Bonus Points:

• Experience with SaaS platforms and customer success domains.

• Experience with large-scale monolith applications and their modernization.

• Contributions to open-source projects, particularly in AI or developer tooling.

• Familiarity with our tech stack: Laravel, Vue.js, Node.js, MongoDB, MySQL, ElasticSearch, Redis, PlanetScale.

What we offer

• Finding yourself in a fast-growing company where your career can evolve. With the help of your number one supporter, your manager, you will follow our departmental growth tracks to pursue the career you want. This is one of the reasons for our positive Glassdoor reviews (4/5).

• We really value flexibility and trust our people. That’s why we work hybrid, and our people can work from abroad for 60 days per year.

• Free sessions with on-demand psychologists from OpenUp. Your mental health is important to us.

• An education budget to feed your curiosity and 2 extra days off for your courses or conferences, if needed.

• 28 vacation days to rest, have fun, and travel as you wish.

• Internet and phone allowance every month!

• Fancy learning Dutch? We also offer Dutch courses for our international employees!

When you work from our beautiful office: you can bet we have delicious warm lunches together prepared by our in-house chef and workplace experience team. Also, your traveling expenses to Utrecht will be reimbursed.