Hybrid Senior Backend Software Engineer

at AirHelp

• Job title: Senior Backend Software Engineer
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Senior
• Salary: PLN 15,000 - PLN 21,000 per month
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: JavaScript, Laravel, MySQL, Node.js, PHP, Postgres, Puppeteer, Redis
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Krakow, Poland

About the role

• Senior Backend Software Engineer developing a new railway compensation product for AirHelp. Collaborating closely with the engineering team to scale processes across Europe.

Responsibilities

• Launch MVPs for new European markets: From eligibility checks and claim forms to ticket parsing, browser automation, partner API integrations, and monitoring systems.
• Translate insights into code: Conduct market research on country-specific rail processes and translate your findings directly into production-ready solutions.
• Own the full lifecycle: Research, build, deploy, and maintain backend features end-to-end.
• Move fast & keep it lean: Pair program and review code with the Engineering Lead, shipping quickly and iterating often.
• Lay the foundations for scale: Your technical decisions today will shape how we expand across Europe tomorrow.
• By month 3: Deliver an MVP (Eligibility Checker pipeline) for a new EU market and contribute to the initial backend architecture for EU expansion.
• By month 6: Deliver a fully functional automation pipeline, extending the eligibility checker with claim submission capabilities, improving trip import workflows for partners, and achieving a high eligibility success rate for your EU market.
• By month 12: Evolve the MVP into a robust, scalable system by replacing third-party components with in-house algorithms. Use this foundation to lead the rollout across additional European markets - refining, optimizing, and scaling the automation playbook you helped create.

Requirements

• Experienced backend builder with 4+ years of hands-on development experience, comfortable owning features from concept to production.
• Proficient in our core tech stack, including: PHP (Laravel Framework), MySQL / PostgreSQL, Redis, RESTful APIs, and Node.js (Puppeteer / Playwright).
• Comfortable working with databases, APIs, background jobs, automation/scraping, browser automation, and B2B integrations.
• Startup mindset: Hands-on, iterative, focused on impact over polish.
• Curious about rail & travel tech, excited by the challenge of building automation and data pipelines in a complex, real-world domain.
• Fluent in English; bonus points for fluency in German, French, or Spanish.

Benefits

• Impact from day one: Play a key role in building AirHelp’s new railway compensation product and shaping its European expansion.
• Collaborative environment: Work from Poland (Kraków, Gdańsk, or Warsaw), but you’ll travel regularly to Amsterdam to work closely with the core team.
• Growth potential: Join at the ground floor and grow with us as we scale across Europe.
• Lean, ambitious culture: A small, high-impact team, no corporate bureaucracy, lots of learning.
• Perks: Private healthcare, wellness budget, travel stipend, gym/transport subsidy, free access to AirHelp services, and more.