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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for a Mobile Server Engineer

💰 $120,000 - $190,000

EngineeringTechnologySoftware DevelopmentBackend

🎯 Role Definition

A Mobile Server Engineer is the architect behind the curtain of our mobile applications. This individual is a specialized Backend Engineer who focuses exclusively on creating, maintaining, and optimizing the server-side services, APIs, and data pipelines that our iOS and Android applications rely on. Your work is the critical backbone that ensures a fast, reliable, and feature-rich experience for our mobile users. You are the crucial link between our powerful backend systems and the user's handheld device, responsible for everything from data synchronization and push notifications to API performance and security. This role requires a deep understanding of both server-side best practices and the unique constraints and challenges of the mobile ecosystem.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Backend Engineer
  • Full-Stack Developer
  • Software Engineer (with an interest in backend systems)

Advancement To:

  • Senior Mobile Server Engineer
  • Backend Tech Lead
  • Staff Engineer (Mobile Infrastructure)
  • Engineering Manager

Lateral Moves:

  • DevOps Engineer
  • Site Reliability Engineer (SRE)
  • Solutions Architect

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Design, develop, and maintain highly scalable, low-latency RESTful and/or GraphQL APIs tailored specifically for consumption by mobile client applications.
  • Architect and implement robust server-side logic and infrastructure to support new and existing mobile application features, ensuring a seamless user experience.
  • Own the entire lifecycle of services, from initial design and prototyping through to deployment, monitoring, and ongoing maintenance in a production environment.
  • Collaborate closely with mobile (iOS and Android) engineers to define API contracts, establish data schemas, and troubleshoot complex integration issues.
  • Implement and manage robust push notification systems (e.g., APNS, FCM), including targeting, scheduling, and analytics, to drive user engagement.
  • Develop and maintain efficient data synchronization mechanisms to support offline functionality and ensure data consistency between the server and mobile clients.
  • Implement comprehensive authentication and authorization flows (e.g., OAuth 2.0, JWT) to secure mobile endpoints and protect user data.
  • Optimize application performance by identifying and resolving bottlenecks in the API, database, and caching layers to minimize response times for mobile users.
  • Write clean, well-documented, and testable code, complemented by a robust suite of unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.
  • Design and manage database schemas (both SQL and NoSQL) to ensure data integrity, scalability, and efficient querying for mobile-centric use cases.
  • Integrate with various third-party services and APIs, handling everything from payment gateways to analytics platforms, ensuring reliability and data consistency.
  • Actively participate in code reviews, providing constructive feedback to peers to maintain a high standard of code quality and team knowledge sharing.
  • Monitor system health, performance, and security using observability tools (like Datadog, New Relic, or Prometheus), and respond to incidents in a timely manner.
  • Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines to automate the testing and deployment of backend services, enabling rapid and reliable delivery of new features.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis to provide insights for product and business teams.
  • Contribute to the organization's broader data strategy and technical roadmap, advocating for best practices in mobile backend architecture.
  • Collaborate with product managers and designers to understand user needs and translate them into technical requirements and actionable engineering tasks.
  • Participate in sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospective ceremonies within an agile development team.
  • Mentor junior engineers, sharing your expertise in backend development and the nuances of supporting mobile platforms.
  • Create and maintain comprehensive technical documentation for APIs and backend systems to serve as a resource for the entire engineering team.
  • Research and evaluate new technologies, frameworks, and methodologies to enhance the performance, scalability, and developer experience of our backend stack.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Backend Programming: Deep proficiency in one or more server-side languages such as Node.js (TypeScript/JavaScript), Go, Python (Django/Flask), Kotlin, or Java (Spring Boot).
  • API Design: Expert-level knowledge of designing, building, and scaling RESTful APIs and/or GraphQL schemas, with a focus on mobile client consumption patterns.
  • Cloud Services: Hands-on experience with a major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure), including services like EC2/GCE, Lambda/Cloud Functions, S3, RDS/Cloud SQL, and SQS/PubSub.
  • Database Management: Strong experience with both relational (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB, Firestore) databases, including schema design and query optimization.
  • Containerization & Orchestration: Proficiency with Docker and container orchestration technologies like Kubernetes (K8s) for deploying and managing microservices.
  • Caching Strategies: Solid understanding of and practical experience with in-memory data stores like Redis or Memcached to improve application performance.
  • Authentication/Authorization: In-depth knowledge of security protocols and standards such as OAuth2, OpenID Connect (OIDC), and JWT.
  • CI/CD & DevOps: Experience with continuous integration and deployment tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, CircleCI, GitHub Actions) and infrastructure as code (e.g., Terraform, CloudFormation).
  • Observability: Familiarity with monitoring, logging, and tracing tools like Datadog, Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, or New Relic.

Soft Skills

  • Collaboration: Ability to work effectively in a cross-functional team, especially with mobile developers, product managers, and designers.
  • Problem-Solving: A knack for dissecting complex technical problems and delivering robust, scalable solutions.
  • Communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Ownership: A strong sense of ownership and accountability for the services you build, from conception to production support.
  • Pragmatism: The ability to balance technical purity with business needs and project timelines to deliver value effectively.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in a relevant field or equivalent practical experience in software development.

Preferred Education:

  • Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Technology

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3-7 years of professional experience in backend software development.

Preferred:

  • At least 2 years of experience specifically focused on building backend services for high-traffic native mobile applications (iOS/Android).
  • Proven experience deploying and managing applications in a large-scale, production cloud environment.
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