Senior Backend Engineer

About the Role

Navan has transformed the corporate travel, payment, and expense landscape by consistently prioritizing user needs. As a Senior Backend Engineer on the Data & Integrations team, you will be a technical leader helping to build the next generation of our data-driven platform that powers global business travel and expense management. You'll architect and develop the core backend infrastructure that processes massive volumes of data, powers critical integrations, and delivers analytical insights to our global customers.

This is a high-impact engineering role where you'll solve complex challenges in distributed systems, data processing, and scalability, directly influencing the reliability and performance of the Navan ecosystem. You'll collaborate closely with a talented team of engineers, product managers, and architects to design and build innovative, large-scale solutions.

What You'll Do

• Design, Build, and Evolve: Architect, build, and evolve the core backend services and data infrastructure of our platform, ensuring our services are scalable, reliable, and maintainable for high-throughput environments.
• Build Data-Driven Services: Design and develop highly scalable APIs and data processing services that manage high volumes of data, power reporting features, and enable seamless integrations with both internal and external systems.
• Own Systems End-to-End: Take technical ownership of a problem domain, architecting, developing, and launching key backend features and microservices that have a direct impact on our users and business operations.
• Collaborate Across Teams: Work cross-functionally with various engineering, product, and business teams to deliver complex, cross-domain features in a collaborative, global environment.
• Drive the Technical Vision: Partner with engineering and product leadership to define and execute the long-term technical roadmap for our data platform. Be a subject matter expert on backend architecture, distributed systems, and data integration patterns.
• Champion Best Practices: Contribute to a culture of technical excellence by writing high-quality, scalable, and well-tested code. Mentor other engineers on backend development and advocate for best practices in system design, API development, monitoring, and operational reliability.

What We're Looking For

• 5+ years of experience in backend software development, building large-scale distributed systems for SaaS products or consumer-facing applications in a fast-paced environment.
• Deep expertise in backend development using Java and Spring Boot, with a strong grasp of JVM fundamentals, performance tuning, and concurrency.
• Proven experience with databases (SQL and/or NoSQL), complex data modeling, and query optimization to handle large datasets.
• Extensive experience designing and implementing scalable, resilient applications using microservices, distributed systems, and event-driven architectures on cloud platforms (AWS preferred).
• Demonstrates strong technical ownership and a collaborative mindset, with excellent communication skills and a proven ability to ship production-quality services equipped with robust testing, monitoring, and documentation.
• A passion for investigating and solving challenging problems in system scalability and data integrity, with a willingness to learn and utilize new tools and technologies.
• Ability to effectively leverage AI development tools (such as GitHub Copilot, CodeGPT, Claude, and Cursor) to accelerate development and innovate on engineering workflows while maintaining high standards for code quality.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field—or equivalent hands-on experience.

Bonus Points For

• Experience with AI/ML technologies, particularly in building backend systems to support agentic AI, LLM-based features, or autonomous workflows.
• Deep familiarity with data pipelines (e.g., Kafka, Kinesis), ETL processes, and reporting systems.
• Experience with performance and scalability testing for high-throughput services.
• Familiarity with travel industry concepts (e.g., bookings, inventory, integrations with GDS or other suppliers).