Backend Engineer (E) (Berlin/London) *Immediate Start*

Our Purpose

Imagine a world where the story, provenance and rights of every piece of art are stored immutably. Where an art purchase today secures perpetual equity to the artist who created it, and where new ownership models are redefined to open up more flexibility for artists, galleries and collectors.

This is why we created Arcual. The first blockchain ecosystem built by the art community for the art community.

Founded in collaboration between Art Basel and LUMA Foundation, and brought to life with the technology and Web3 expertise of BCG Digital Ventures, Arcual is uniting the art industry in a shared mission to put artists at the center of the art ecosystem, offering them greater ownership, transparency, and participation in their careers.

Given the advancements in web3 and blockchain technology we’re now in a position to accelerate transformation across the arts and address the unique needs of artists, galleries, institutions, and collectors to create a trusted space for information, partnerships, and transactions that empowers our users to fully embrace innovation. Smart contracts offering artist and gallery royalties, custom payment terms, sales agreements, verified provenance, and digital certificates of authenticity are only the beginning.

We are now recruiting the team that will grow this business over the coming years to shape the future art world with Arcual.

The Department

Our engineering team works in close collaboration with product and design to tackle big technical topics and build awesome products. We’re a mix of frontend, backend, and blockchain engineers with a passion for high-quality software that uses both tried-and-true and cutting-edge technology. It’s all about the right tool for the job.

Working with us you’ll have the opportunity to go deep in your area of expertise, as well as getting familiar with the other kinds of work that we do.
We are looking for engineers who are curious, collaborative, solution-oriented, and eager to tackle new challenges.

Our Tech Stack:

• Our frontend stack is Vue 3 (composition API) and Typescript, Kotlin and Spring Boot on the backend, connected via Apache Kafka.
• For testing, we make heavy use of Jest and Cypress
• The infrastructure stack is AWS, managed with Terrafrom
• Our blockchain infrastructure is EVM-based, with smart contracts written in Solidity
• Figma is used for UI/UX design & collaboration with the design and product teams

What You Will Do

• Grow an innovative, ground breaking product that address real customer frictions by developing and optimizing the blockchain platform and creating a smooth and pleasant end-user experience for our customers
• Contribute to a future-ready and high-quality performance code base, working on technical solutions and product ideas in close cooperation with other developers, designers and product managers
• Build scalable, high-performance backend web applications based on Spring Boot / Kotlin and drive elegant solutions
• Collaborate with our developer team on infrastructure optimization
• Take end to end ownership over what you build and focus on qualities such as testing, security, stability, scalability and operability
• Foster good agile practices that provide a foundation for iterative product development and build valid solutions to live problems
• Keep up to date on the latest technology developments in the space with advancements in software development, blockchain, and Web 3.0

What We Look For

• Ability to write production-ready code in Kotlin
• Well-versed with current trends in software development (e.g. Kafka, Reactive Programming)
• Excellent knowledge of backend software architecture and API design
• Experience with deploying to Amazon Web Service (AWS) ideally, or GCP/Azure using Terraform or other IaC
• Experience working in a cross-functional setting with Product Managers and Designers
• Excellent knowledge of software engineering best practices (e.g. test-driven development, unit testing, code reviews, and design documentation)
• Product bias with the ability to balance user-centric considerations with those of the wider company
• Demonstrate a growth mindset and strong collaboration skills to thrive in multidisciplinary teams
• You are adaptable to change and keen to work in a dynamic environment helping to shape an early-stage product
• Strong focus on code quality, robustness, automation, testing, and monitoring
• Knowledge of blockchain, cryptography, distributed networks and protocols would be a plus, particularly Ethereum-based technologies. You will have the opportunity to learn these skills otherwise.

Our Hiring Process

• The first step will be a screening call with our Talent Acquisition Manager
• From there, we’ll arrange a technical screening with one of our engineers
• If we’re both happy to proceed after the screening round, we’ll schedule a functional interview with two of our engineers (from a mix of disciplines, depending on the role you’re applying for) where we will discuss some example code you provide
• The functional interview will be followed up with a cross-functional interview with a product designer and product manager

Why Arcual?