Backend / DevOps Engineer — Interval 360

We're a small US-based SaaS company hiring a backend/DevOps engineer to work directly with our CTO in an async, written-first environment. We start at 15 hours/week with a 30-day trial and expand from there.

This form should take about 15–20 minutes. The short-answer questions matter more than the resume — please don't rush them.

Section 1: Basic Info

Let's start with your basic info

Years of professional backend engineering experience

Section 2: Technical Background

Which of the following do you have hands-on production experience with?

Python / Django

Node.js

PostgreSQL (not just querying — diagnostic work on prod)

Redis

Celery or other task queue (Dramatiq, RQ, etc.)

Docker in production

AWS (EC2, ALB, S3)

AWS IAM and Secrets Manager

CloudWatch or similar observability tooling

CI/CD pipeline setup (GitHub Actions, CircleCI, etc.)

Apache or Nginx server configuration

OpenAI or other LLM APIs

Describe the most production-critical system you've owned end-to-end. What was it, what did you build or maintain, and what broke? (3–6 sentences)

How comfortable are you reading and working in a language you didn't primarily learn? For example: you're strong in Python but the codebase has significant Node.js. (Short answer)

Section 3: Async Work and Communication

This role includes responding to production incidents during your working hours. What are your typical working hours, and how quickly can you typically respond to text/email ping during them? (1–2 sentences)

This role runs almost entirely on written communication across a ~12-hour timezone gap. Describe your most recent experience working with an overseas client or distributed async team. How did handoffs work? What went wrong, and how did you handle it? (3–6 sentences)

Walk us through how you'd handle this scenario: You start your workday and find a message from the CTO (who is now asleep) that says: "Celery workers were processing tasks fine yesterday, but this morning the queue is backed up and nothing seems to be moving. I haven't had time to look at it. Can you sort it out?" What do you do, in what order, and what do you write up when you're done? (There's no single correct answer — we're looking at how you think and communicate.)

Section 4: Production Mindset

Describe a production incident where you were the one who had to figure out what happened. What were the symptoms, what did you find, and what did you change as a result? (4–8 sentences)

What's the most embarrassing bug you've personally introduced into production? What was the blast radius and what did you learn? (3–5 sentences)

Section 5: Fit and Logistics

Why does this role appeal to you specifically? What's drawn you to this role over others you might be considering? (3–5 sentences)

Share anything relevant — GitHub, Bitbucket, a blog, a portfolio. Not required, but we'll look at whatever you send. (Optional)

Anything else you want us to know? (Optional)

Attach your CV/resume (PDF)

Size limit: 10 MB