Principal Backend Engineer | Architect
Location: Chicago, IL (Hybrid - 1 day/week in-office)
Company: Ludex, Inc.
About Ludex
Ludex is a consumer-facing technology platform transforming the sports and trading card hobby through AI-driven scanning, data, and marketplace tools. We build products used by millions of collectors and enterprise sellers, and we move fast. If you thrive in a startup environment where ownership, velocity, and impact matter, you'll feel at home here.
Role Overview
We are seeking a hands-on Principal Engineer to help design, build, and scale the backend systems that power Ludex's consumer and Enterprise products. This role is ideal for an experienced engineer who enjoys building high-performance, scalable applications, working close to the product, and operating with an entrepreneurial mindset.
You will play a critical role in architecture decisions, performance optimization, and the evolution of our platform as we scale users, data volume, and revenue.
This role requires a high level of ownership and autonomy. You will be responsible for making key backend architecture decisions and driving execution in a fast-moving startup environment.
Key Responsibilities
- Design, develop, and maintain scalable backend services using Node.js, NestJS, and TypeScript
- Build and optimize APIs that support consumer-facing products and enterprise workflows
- Design, manage, and optimize PostgreSQL databases and data models for performance and reliability
- Work with AWS infrastructure (e.g., EC2, RDS, S3, Lambda, CloudWatch, etc.)
- Collaborate closely with frontend engineers, product, and other teams to deliver end-to-end features
- Ensure high standards for code quality, efficiency, security, and performance
- Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across services and databases
- Participate in architecture discussions and contribute to long-term technical strategy
- Support deployments, monitoring, and system reliability in production environments
- Thrive in a fast-paced startup environment, balancing speed with sound engineering judgment
Required Qualifications
- 7+ years of professional backend engineering experience
- Strong proficiency with Node.js and TypeScript
- Hands-on experience with NestJS or similar backend frameworks
- Deep experience working with relational databases, particularly PostgreSQL
- Proven experience building and scaling consumer-facing applications
- Experience working with AWS in production environments
- Strong understanding of API design, data modeling, and system architecture
- Ability to write clean, efficient, maintainable, and well-tested code
- Strong ability to independently evaluate technical approaches and make architecture decisions in a startup environment.
- Proven experience owning backend systems end-to-end, including design, implementation, deployment, and ongoing evolution.
- Comfortable working in ambiguous, fast-moving environments with evolving requirements
- Strong communication skills and a collaborative mindset
Nice to Have
- DevOps experience, including CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure-as-code, or deployment automation
- Experience with system monitoring, observability, and performance tuning
- Experience supporting high-scale or data-intensive applications
- Prior startup or high-growth company experience
Work Environment
- Hybrid role: must be able to work in-office in Chicago at least 1 day per week
- Collaborative, hands-on engineering culture
- Small team, high ownership, and real influence on product direction
Why Ludex
- Build products used by millions of passionate collectors
- High-impact role with real ownership and visibility
- Opportunity to shape architecture and engineering standards
- Fast-moving, entrepreneurial environment without heavy bureaucracy