API Engineer

At Holdbar, we're not just developing software; we're revolutionizing how experiences are created, distributed and sold in a fast-growing ~$1.5T global market.

Our platform is designed to unleash the full potential of the experiences industry, simplifying complexities and manual workflows, with a simple yet powerful software suite.

We are backed by several renowned Nordic and International VC funds like Seed Capital and Firstminute Capital providing a strong foundation for our international growth.

We are looking for an API Engineer to help us design and build our Public API which will pave the way for our future Application Marketplace.

Before reading through the specifics of the job post, we urge you to read more about working at Holdbar here.

The Holdbar Stack

We've built Holdbar platform with a perspective of excellence and ambition.

To us, this means we've built the platform with scale in mind, but without overengineering it from the get-go. We keep our goals and ambitions in sight when we make decisions, but we're realistic of what we need to do, to also move fast.

With this in mind, we've chosen to build Holdbar on a modern and proven stack:

• Everything is written in TypeScript, to allow all developers to read and understand all our code
• Frontends are built in React and Next.js, hosted on Vercel
• Internal APIs, Serverless Function and other backend systems are built using Node.js, running on AWS Lambda
• We've utilized an event-driven architecture in critical areas
• Fully automated CI/CD with GitHub Actions
• All infrastructure is hosted on AWS and managed using Terraform

What we're looking for

In the perfect world, you would be either a Backend-turned-DevOps engineer or vice versa with experience from both worlds. As we know, this is like asking for a unicorn for Christmas. But if you have experience in either field, and interest within the other, you might be who we're looking for!

Preferably you have a broad spectrum of interests within both API Design, Development and Cloud Infrastructure. You thrive on troubleshooting, analyzing and optimizing everything from APIs and all they way down to infrastructure, and know how to connect the dots or create the tooling that does.

You have previously been working as an API Engineer at another SaaS platform, and have experience designing and implementing scalable APIs including their monitoring, authentication/authorization and documentation.

We're looking for the person who will drive the development of our Public APIs, including it's infrastructure, and work together with our Product Team to ensure we're building the future of what integrating with Holdbar will look like.

We value personality more than fancy CVs, so if you're a person who agrees with our values, who is curious but focused, loves to build and help others grow and last but not least, thrives in a social environment with equally ambitious colleagues, then you might be who we're looking for!

Your responsibilities

You'll be working directly with the CTO and the Product Team. Over the course of the coming year, you'll be central driving force of:

• Designing and implementing the first version of our Public API
• Creating the first few integrations to external systems
• Participate in building the Holdbar Developer Platform

Why a Public API?

At Holdbar, we believe in building a simply, yet powerful system. We believe, that we can and should build the core system, of what will fit the primary needs of what it takes, to run and grow an experience business.

However we also know that not two businesses are the same, and that requirements will differ.

To allow our customers to tailor their Holdbar solution to their needs, we'll need our Public API, such that we enable third-party integrations and extensions. We strongly believe, that letting others extend the functionality of Holdbar, will be a key part of our product offering.

Our goal is to create a thriving developer community and ecosystem, with an open Application Marketplace, where we invite others to build and submit applications, either as integrations or extensions, and with a fair revenue-share model on these applications.

But of course, we have to start somewhere. Our current APIs are built as the backbone of our core product; and not for public / external use.

The Public API will be the adapter between the World and the Holdbar Core product.

How we work

We've all been through many different types of project management frameworks like Scrum, Waterfall, Kanban etc.

At Holdbar, we've adapted the Shape Up method developed by 37 Signals. The reason behind this is that it works very well in a small product-oriented team. But it also allows the developers to get creative with implementations instead of having a project manager running a 'dev factory'.

As Shape Up was made for a remote-first company, it also enables async communication, which we are true believers of. We don't want to spend time in meetings, which could have been a Slack message... However, we also know that sometimes when discussing complex subjects, having a 10 minute whiteboard session can accelerate the process, instead of going back and forth in Slack threads.

We value focused and Deep Work, and it's not frowned upon to simply arrive at the office, put on the headset and get to work. But at the same time, we're all social people, and we know the strength of getting up and away from the screen, to have a chat about the projects, or just go for a walk and get some air while chatting.

We try and help out where we can, whether it's within our field or not; as we value different perspectives in our work and know how powerful it is, to get a different perspective on things.