At Macadam, we've built an app that rewards people for walking. With over 15 million users worldwide, we help individuals turn their daily steps into positive habits for health, wellbeing, and sustainability.
Our team is growing fast, and our ambitions are global. We operate at the intersection of health, gamification, and technology, and we're building a world-class engineering team to support this growth.
If you're passionate about building high-performance backend systems and leading the people who build them, we'd love to meet you!
Please send the CV in English.
As Backend Engineering Lead at Macadam, you'll own two things at once: the technical quality of our backend, and the day-to-day leadership of a team of 5 engineers. You'll report directly to the Director of Engineering.
This is an 70% IC / 30% management role. The majority of your time is spent writing production code, making architecture decisions, and raising the technical bar. The remaining 30% is people work: 1:1s, growth conversations, unblocking the team, and bridging backend with the rest of the company.
If you want to step away from the keyboard, this isn't the role. If you want to lead by doing, read on!
As an IC (70%)
Design, build, and maintain robust backend services and APIs using NestJS and TypeScript.
Own architecture and delivery on our core systems: gamification engine, in-app economy, map infrastructure.
Architect and optimize PostgreSQL schemas and queries for performance at scale.
Implement and manage Redis caching strategies.
Leverage Google Cloud Platform (Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage) for deployment and infrastructure.
Drive technical decisions end-to-end, from design to production.
Reduce bus factor on critical systems: document, distribute ownership, harden.
Champion AI tooling adoption to amplify team throughput.
Anticipate technical risk before it becomes an incident.
As a Lead (30%)
Improve backend processes and delivery, track team performances.
Work closely with QA and Mobile team to improve day-to-day operations.
Manage 5 backend engineers: 1:1s, growth conversations, direct performance feedback.
Translate product and business priorities into scoped, executable technical work.
Be the communication layer between backend and the rest of the company, proactively, not reactively.
Improve release discipline and post-release stability across the team.
Identify and close skill gaps through mentoring and thoughtful delegation.
6+ years of experience in backend development, with production systems at scale.
Deep expertise in TypeScript and NestJS, you're the person others come to with hard questions.
Strong PostgreSQL skills: indexing, query optimization, schema design at scale.
Hands-on experience with Redis and Google Cloud Platform.
Experience with Prisma ORM or equivalent is a strong plus.
You've led or mentored engineers before, you know how to give direct feedback and grow people.
You scope before you build and push back when complexity isn't justified.
Proactive communicator: you surface risks early without being asked.
Fluent in English.
Backend: Node.js with TypeScript, NestJS framework, Prisma ORM.
Database: PostgreSQL, Redis (caching).
Infrastructure: Google Cloud Platform (Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage).
Mobile: React Native with TypeScript.
Analytics: BigQuery, Mixpanel, Metabase.
Practices: REST APIs, CI/CD pipelines, code reviews, agile sprints.
Be part of a mission-driven company making a tangible difference in people's lives, one step at a time.
Real ownership: lead a backend team and ship systems used by millions from day one.
Opportunities for professional growth, learning, and international exposure.
A supportive, talented, and passionate international team.
Offices in the heart of Barcelona.
Meal voucher.
Wellness allowance (powered by Urban Sports).
Private healthcare (Alan).
Hybrid working culture with international flexibility.
4 Macadam holiday days.
Friday Team lunch.
Company events and offsites.
We don’t just talk about change - we walk it.
Our principles:
Make it happen - take ownership, drive outcomes that matter.
Build together, win together - support and challenge each other to go further.
Trust the data - decide clearly, act confidently, measure what counts.
Build for people - design with empathy, simplicity, real humans in mind.
Think bigger - set the bar high, push boundaries, imagine better ways.
Want to see what we're about? Check out our website, Linkedin and Instagram page.
