Senior Backend Software Engineer

• Navan is building the next generation of intelligent travel experiences, where loyalty, personalization, and AI agents help travelers make better decisions before, during, and after every trip

• As a Senior Software Engineer (Backend), you’ll drive the technical vision, architecture, and execution for the highly available, distributed services that form the backbone of Navan’s global travel and expense platform

• Architect Core Backend Systems: Design, build, and scale high-performance, fault-tolerant microservices that process millions of travel and expense transactions globally

• Lead Technical Initiatives: Drive complex, cross-functional engineering projects from conception to deployment, making critical architectural trade-offs and setting technical standards for the wider backend organization

• Optimize Performance & Reliability: Build robust APIs, asynchronous event-driven architectures, and scalable data pipelines with a relentless focus on low latency, high availability, and operational excellence

• Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Partner closely with product management, engineering leadership, data, and platform teams to translate ambiguous business requirements into cohesive, enterprise-grade technical solutions

• Raise the Engineering Bar: Champion maintainable code, thoughtful abstractions, and rigorous testing. Act as a force multiplier by mentoring engineers, leading architecture reviews, and fostering a culture of strong operational ownership

Benefits

• Parental leave

• Commuter benefits

• Healthcare

• Flexible Vacation

• Health and Wellness

• Fuel for Connection

• Pet Friendly

• IATAN (travel-related discounts)

• 401k (retirement plan)

• Connectivity Allowance

• Learning & Development- 6+ years of software engineering experience building and operating highly scalable, distributed production systems at an enterprise or global scale

• Product mindset with the ability to balance immediate product delivery with long-term technical health and scalability

• Experience with travel platforms, fintech, payment processing, or complex financial ledgers is a strong plus

• Exceptional skills in systems observability, production debugging, and ensuring the reliability of critical Tier 1 services

• Deep technical expertise in backend engineering stacks such as Java, TypeScript/Node.js, Python, or Go, alongside a strong mastery of engineering fundamentals

• Extensive hands-on experience designing microservices, complex APIs, event-driven workflows (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ), caching strategies, and distributed databases

• Proven track record of driving technical vision and leading the architecture of large, multi-team projects from inception through to successful production rollouts