Senior Backend Software Engineer (Operations)

Title: Senior Backend Software Engineer (Operations)

Department: Business Automation

Location: Espoo, Finland

Type of employment: Permanent role with hybrid setup; 3 days a week at the office

Employment is subject to applicable security screening (incl. SUPO)

The Mission of the Senior Frontend Engineer

Keep ICEYE’s core APIs stable, observable, and trusted, powering reliable satellite tasking at scale.

In this role, you will join ICEYE’s engineering domain responsible for customer-facing systems and interfaces (APIs and Web UIs). Your team, Operations, is responsible for our systems running smoothly in production. Your work directly contributes to the stability and operability of our Core platform and APIs — the backbone of our customers’ ability to task our satellite fleet.

You’ll work closely with product managers and other engineers to design, build, operate and evolve tooling and observability of a robust set of APIs and backend services. Because our teams are responsible for the APIs that customers directly integrate with, reliability, thoughtful design, and timely issue resolution are key. You’ll have the opportunity to work in a diverse and experienced team of engineers, collaborate across team and engineering domain boundaries, and grow your technical and problem-solving skills in a fast-moving high-reliability environment.

Our primary development language in backend services is Go. We use PostgreSQL for storage and NATS for event based communication. Our services run on Kubernetes in both cloud (AWS) and on-prem environments. We use Cursor, Devin, and other LLM based tools heavily in our daily work. We also highly appreciate it if you are comfortable occasionally contributing to our Web UIs using TypeScript and React.

We value curiosity, teamwork, and craftsmanship — and we follow agile principles to incrementally deliver robust and maintainable software.

Who We Are

ICEYE delivers space-based intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities to governments and allied nations. This includes sovereign and turnkey ISR missions leveraging ICEYE’s world-leading synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite technology, as well as access to data from the world’s largest SAR satellite constellation. These capabilities enable partners to detect and respond to critical changes anywhere on Earth with unprecedented speed and accuracy – day or night and in any weather, supported by ultra high-resolution imagery and high-frequency revisits.

As a trusted partner for defense, intelligence, security, and maritime domain awareness, ICEYE’s near real-time data creates a tactical advantage for mission-critical operations. Designed for dual use, the platform also serves civil protection and commercial users for natural-catastrophe intelligence, insurance, maritime monitoring (including oil-spill detection), and finance, contributing to global security and community resilience.

ICEYE operates internationally with offices in Finland, Poland, Spain, Japan, the UAE, Greece, and the US. The company has more than 900 employees, inspired by the shared vision of improving life on Earth by becoming the global source of truth in Earth Observation.

Key responsibilities & Requirements

Key responsibilities

• Contribute to the design, development, and support of backend capabilities, workflow automation, tooling, and APIs.
• Maintain our services in production, ensuring reliability, observability and performance as well as timely issue resolution.
• Collaborate with product managers, customers, internal stakeholders and other engineering teams to understand business needs and turn the insights into valuable solutions.
• Write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code, and actively take part in code reviews and continuous improvement of our architecture and ways of working.
• Follow and apply security and quality best practices.

Role-specific Competences

• Solid experience in backend software development, preferably in Go or a similar language and operating APIs and backend systems in production.
• Eagerness to understand business and customer problems and collaborate with stakeholders to make the right tradeoffs to build things that truly matter.
• Understanding of both cloud (e.g. AWS) and on-prem environments, infrastructure-as-code principles (e.g., Terraform) and container technologies (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Experience in monitoring and observability tools (Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry) and operating high-reliability systems in production.
• Ability and willingness to occasionally go full-stack with Web UIs using TypeScript and React.
• Team work mindset; you take ownership of your work while keeping the team’s goals front and center. You actively contribute to team discussions and help drive technical decisions.

• You believe testing, documentation, and code reviews are essential parts of engineering—not chores.

Nice to have

• Experience with authentication and authorization standards (OAuth, OpenID Connect, JWT).
• Working experience as a Site Reliability Engineering (SRE).
• Hands-on experience with AI-powered engineering tools.
• Familiarity with Event-Driven architectures.
• Experience with geospatial data (PostGIS, GeoJSON).
• Interest in space, Earth observation, or satellite operations.

Key Competences

In addition to the requirements above, we evaluate candidates on these key qualities throughout the hiring process:

• Intellectual Firepower: Rapidly comprehends, structures and synthesizes complex information, draws accurate conclusions, and communicates them with clarity.
• Passion & Work Ethic: Brings sustained motivation, resilience, and high personal standards to every challenge.
• Ownership & Action: Assumes full accountability for outcomes, acting decisively, and ensuring commitments are delivered.
• Team Player: Works collaboratively across teams, contributing to shared success, and engaging in constructive debate.
• Integrity & Growth Mindset: Operates with transparency and humility, learns from setbacks, and actively seeks opportunities to grow.

What We Offer at ICEYE

At ICEYE, you will join a diverse and highly engaged team united by the ambition to make the impossible possible. We know that we will succeed only through exceptional people in our team — which is why your growth, wellbeing, and success are a priority.

As a global scale-up, we combine speed and ambition with the opportunity to take real ownership from day one. You will benefit from continuous professional development, training opportunities, and a culture that values collaboration, curiosity, and integrity. ICEYE is a place where your contributions have a visible impact, and where we celebrate success together.

Benefits

• A job that matters in a dynamic Defence Technology and Earth Observation environment with a scale-up approach
• An independent role with a supportive and diverse work environment
• Occupational healthcare, occupational, and accident insurance
• A yearly benefit budget to spend as you wish (i.e. on sport, transport, bike benefit, wellness, lunch, etc.)
• Phone subscription with iPhone of choice
• Relocation support (i.e. flight tickets, accommodation, relocation agency support)
• Time for self-development, research, training, conferences, or certification schemes
• Inspiring and collaborating offices and silent workspaces enable you to focus
• Base salary range for this position is 5 500- 7 500 € per month (gross) contingent on your experience level, and will be negotiated individually.

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

At ICEYE, we believe that diversity isn't just a buzzword – it's our greatest asset.

We're committed to fostering an inclusive environment where every voice is not only heard but celebrated. We know that diverse perspectives breed innovation and creativity, which is why we actively seek out individuals from all walks of life, backgrounds, and experiences.

Whatever your background, we want you to bring your authentic self to the table. Join us and be part of a team where differences are not only embraced but cherished, because together, we're stronger.

We welcome applications from people of all backgrounds, including those who may need workplace adjustments. If you require any specific accommodations or assistance during the recruitment process for any reason, please let us know.

Apply now to start your ICEYE journey, and help us continue to make the impossible possible together. Read more about ICEYE and working with us at iceye.com.