Lingo.dev helps world-class dev teams use LLMs for app localization and content translation.

We're growing!

Developers use our open-source i18n toolkit 2,500 times every week. Our CI integration creates automated pull requests with missing translations the moment code changes. Our localization compiler makes React apps multilingual without rewriting existing code.

We're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer – System Design to join us and architect the APIs, databases, and AI pipelines that power LLM-powered translations at scale.

Our ideal Staff Backend Engineer:

• Designs REST APIs with p95 < 100 ms and resource hierarchies any engineer understands at first glance
• Models data in PostgreSQL / MongoDB that serves 10 M+ translation calls per day without weekend migrations
• Orchestrates 1,000+ concurrent LLM requests under 200 ms
• Ships infra-as-code on AWS that self-heals in < 60 s and auto-scales 10× traffic bursts
• Writes idiomatic Node.js / TypeScript that a new teammate can extend by week 1
• Owns observability — metrics, tracing, “pager only if p95 > 500 ms” policies — and thrives on user feedback
• Stays ahead of cutting-edge AI tech the moment it drops

You'll architect REST APIs that stay fast under load. Design databases that handle complex translation workflows. Build AI pipelines that orchestrate LLMs and vector databases with obsessive attention to performance and parallelization.

Our tech stack is JavaScript-based (Node.js, TypeScript) with PostgreSQL, but you should expect MongoDB, Redis, Queues too. Be comfortable optimizing edge performance with Cloudflare, Vercel, or similar.

You'll face intense technical challenges and solve scalability problems others give up on, with a world-class team that makes it worthwhile.

Why “System Design” matters here

Simple: AI has made coding easy. Claude-4, O-3, Cursor, Devin – they write decent code and Terraform configs now.

What remains invaluable? Intuition and taste – shaped by solving hard problems, learning what actually works, and, in moments of uncertainty, making the right call even when there's no clear answer. That kind of judgment is forged through the pain of making many correct decisions, and a few wrong ones you regret and learn from.

We don't want you to join us because you can code. We want you to join us because you feel what is good, elegant, and beautiful, because you see what others don't. And because you're a great person to work with.

We're a deeply technical team, backed by the same investors who backed Stripe, Airbnb, and Coinbase. Plus founders of Supabase and Dependabot. And all of them want us to build tools developers love.

We hire globally, work remotely, and meet regularly as a team in new locations around the world.

If you’re looking for a space to do your 120 % best – send us your CV and attach the most unusual work you're most proud of!