Backend engineer for dating apps

Inner Circle is a dating app for people who are done wasting time. Every member is screened thoroughly, so the profiles you see are people worth dating. Every AI-powered feature starts with the data and infrastructure behind it. From building scalable backend systems to powering smarter matching and personalisation, our engineers turn data into meaningful connections - and shape how AI transforms the future of dating.

• Deliver backend features that improve matchmaking, engagement and retention. You work from outcome-based stories: the team agrees on the result, and you own how to get there.
• Build new Kotlin services and help extract functionality from the PHP monolith step by step, without disrupting the members who use the app every day.
• Use AI and agentic tools such as Claude Code in your daily work. Give them clear specs and context, and review what they produce as critically as you would review a colleague’s code.
• Write clean, testable code with automated tests, keep pull requests small, follow secure coding practices, and stay responsible for your code once it runs in production.
• Reason through problems and ship solutions that are good enough. Recognise when something needs more care or optimisation, and ask for input when a decision is bigger than your part of the system.

• 3+ years of experience in backend engineering
• Proficiency in at least one typed backend language, such as Kotlin, Java, C#, Go, TypeScript or PHP
• Solid experience with APIs and relational databases, including query performance
• Understanding of systems design and software architecture, and the ability to reason about trade-offs
• You know why clean code matters and you apply it, with or without AI
• Experience writing automated tests and working with CI/CD
• Hands-on experience with AI coding tools, or a strong drive to learn agentic engineering practices
• Clear communication in English, both spoken and written (design docs, decision records, pull request descriptions)
• Curious, and keen to try new tools and ways of working
• Focused on outcomes rather than output
• Pragmatic: you know when good enough is good enough
• Comfortable asking questions and explaining your reasoning
• An authentic team player
• Будет плюсом: Experience with AWS; Experience with event-driven systems or microservice architectures; Familiarity with Domain-Driven Design or clean architecture; Experience with Kotlin or the JVM; Experience working in, and gradually migrating, a legacy codebase

• A fulltime job that makes a positive impact on people's lives
• A competitive salary matched with your experience and ambition
• An amazing work environment in our office at Prins Hendrikkade, at the heart of Amsterdam
• A Macbook or other hardware of your choice to be able to do your job
• Stay healthy and bring your own device allowance
• Training and development budget
• Frequent team get-togethers and team activities
• Free Inner Circle VIP membership for you and your single friends