Senior Go Backend Engineer Utrecht

Build a new distributed backend codebase inside a globally used networking platform | Go, Distributed Systems, Cryptography | €105K + Stock

Amsterdam
€ 105.000

Golang

Vacancy: Senior Backend Engineer Utrecht

Do you want to work on backend systems that run on millions of devices worldwide, where correctness, availability and security are not theoretical concerns but daily reality?
Do you enjoy building new systems from the ground up, making fundamental design choices and shaping a codebase that will be used at global scale?
And do you want to do this in a small, exceptionally senior engineering team where productivity is unusually high and engineering discussions operate at a very deep level?

Then this role is very likely worth your attention.

Your employer: a small, deeply technical company with outsized global impact

Your employer is a highly technical product company in Utrecht building software that enables secure, decentralized networking across the internet. Their technology allows devices anywhere in the world to communicate directly with each other as if they were on the same local network.

What started as an open-source project has grown into a globally adopted platform, running on millions of machines in almost all countries. Despite this reach, the company remains intentionally small, with fewer than 50 people worldwide.

This combination is rare. A very small team operating software with massive global impact. Decisions are made quickly, engineers have real ownership, and individual contributions visibly shape the product.

The company is now expanding its engineering presence in Europe. The team in the Netherlands is relatively newand plays a key role in building new backend components and services that complement and extend the existing platform. Much is still open for discussion: architecture, boundaries, tooling and long-term design choices.

At the same time, you collaborate with an extremely senior engineering team. Many colleagues have decades of experience in distributed systems, networking and security. The level of focus and productivity is unusually high. When people say “small but powerful team”, this is what they mean.

Your job: Senior Go Backend Engineer Utrecht

As Senior Go Backend Engineer Utrecht you work on the next generation backend systems that support and extend the platform. You are not maintaining a legacy codebase. You are helping design and build new services that need to integrate cleanly with a globally deployed networking product.

You take ownership end to end: from early design discussions and implementation to deployment, observability and long-term maintenance. You help decide how new services should behave under failure, how they scale globally and how they remain secure by default.

Your work touches areas such as:

Distributed system behaviour under unreliable network conditions
High-availability, business-critical backend services
Secure communication, identity and trust models
Performance and correctness at global scale

While Go is the primary language for backend development, the focus is on strong systems thinking and fundamentals, not on language dogma. The impact of your decisions will be felt quickly and broadly.

What is required

6+ years of professional backend engineering experience
Strong experience building and operating distributed systems
Experience designing new backend systems or major components from scratch
Solid programming experience in Go
Comfort owning services across their full lifecycle, including production
Strong engineering fundamentals around testing, reliability and performance
Clear communication skills and a product-oriented mindset
Nice to have, but not required:
Experience with networking concepts (TCP/IP, routing, firewalls)
Exposure to cryptography or security-sensitive systems
Experience with cloud platforms, Kubernetes or modern observability tooling

What is offered

Salary between €85.000 and €105.000, depending on experience
Company stock options, sharing directly in long-term success
25 vacation days
Amazing office, next to the train station
Flexible, 2 working from home days
Choice of your own hardware
Budget for training, conferences and continuous learning
The rare opportunity to build new backend systems inside a product with massive global adoption
A small, exceptionally senior team where productivity and impact are unusually high