Senior Backend Engineer

Welcome to MICE DESK



MICE DESK is the leading European company automating the sales process in the hospitality industry — and we are now expanding to the US.

Our platform, Rocket, turns event, meeting, and group inquiries into autonomous end-to- end workflows: from RFP to signed contract, across email, CRM, and PMS systems. We integrate with the systems hotels actually run on — Oracle OPERA Cloud, SIHOT, Guestline, Salesforce, Marriott's enterprise stack — which means our engineers work inside real hotel operations, not against sandbox APIs.

We are a Series A-stage company with a deliberately small team and real enterprise traction: major hotel groups across Europe run their group sales on Rocket. The people joining now shape the product, the deployment playbook, and the culture.

We are looking for a skilled Senior Backend Engineer to join our engineering team.

What You Will Own

1. Backend platform development and ownership.

Own the design, development, and maintenance of backend services and APIs that support enterprise clients and the MICE DESK integration platform. Ensure services are reliable, scalable, and aligned with business and customer requirements.

2. Third-party integrations and data workflows.

Design and maintain integrations with external systems, including Property Management Systems (PMS), CRM platforms, booking systems, and other enterprise applications. Build reliable synchronization workflows using APIs, webhooks, background jobs, and appropriate failure-handling strategies.

3. Backend architecture and technical decisions.

Contribute to architectural decisions, technical design discussions, and continuous improvement of backend systems. Help define scalable solutions, improve system reliability, and drive technology improvements across the platform.

4. Code quality and engineering standards.

Develop clean, maintainable, and testable code following backend engineering best practices. Participate in code reviews, technical discussions, and help improve engineering standards and development processes.

5. Cross-functional collaboration and delivery.

Collaborate closely with Frontend, DevOps, QA, Product, and Customer Success teams to deliver reliable end-to-end solutions. Support effective communication, alignment, and successful delivery of product features.

6. Performance optimization and system reliability.

Identify and resolve performance bottlenecks across backend services. Optimize database queries, improve data processing efficiency, and contribute to building stable, high-performing systems.

Who You Are

Must-have

• 5+ years of professional experience in back-end development
• Strong knowledge of PHP 8 and Laravel
• Experience with RESTful, Soap APIs
• Solid understanding of SQL/NoSQL databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Redis, MongoDB)
• Knowledge of microservices architecture, event-driven systems, and message brokers (Kafka, RabbitMQ)
• Experience with Docker and CI/CD pipelines
• Solid experience with ELK and unit test coverage
• Experience with Git, Jira/Linear, Confluence/Notion
• Hands-on with AI-driven development and AI coding assistants (e.g., Claude Code)
• Understanding of security, authentication, and data-protection principles
• Strong problem-solving and debugging skills
• Excellent English communication skills (B2–C1)

Nice-to-have

• Real-time systems - WebSockets (Laravel Echo / Socket.IO)
• Experience working in the hospitality industry (PMS or CRM systems)
• Integrating enterprise / third-party platforms (Microsoft Graph, Google Workspace APIs, RPA Systems)
• Experience in high-growth / Series A startups

Hiring Process

• HR Interview — Background, backend engineering experience, communication skills, career goals, and motivation for joining MICE DESK.
• Technical Interview 1 - Engineering fundamentals & experience.
• Technical Interview 2 - End-to-end solution design and planning.
• Team Interview - Collaboration & day-to-day fit.
• Founder interview - Ownership mindset, technical leadership, alignment with MICE DESK's vision, decision-making, long-term impact, and building scalable engineering solutions.

Why MICE DESK

• Build the integration platform behind one of Europe's leading AI solutions for hospitality sales automation - now expanding into the US
• Work on complex engineering challenges involving APIs, distributed systems, and enterprise software
• Own systems that are critical to customer onboarding, platform reliability, and product scalability
• Help shape the architecture of a fast-growing Series A company building the next generation of hospitality technology