Senior Backend Developer

Payroll that runs itself. You build the part that runs it.

quinn is an app-based managed payroll and employment-administration service for households and companies who employ people directly. The customer stays the legal employer. quinn registers the employment, runs payroll, pays salaries, social insurance and taxes, and handles every filing that follows, on their behalf and automated end to end.

We don’t sell payroll software. We run payroll.

We operate in Switzerland, Germany and the UK. Last year [more than CHF 250 million] in salaries ran through our systems, correct to the cent. The purpose behind it is simple: fair employment, for all.

01Why this role exists

Every market brings its own authorities, insurers, pension funds and tax rules. Our answer is quinn ONE: one platform for every product and market, with a shared core for what all countries have in common and a configuration layer per country on top, designed to carry twelve countries.

The backend is that core. It is a modular monolith in C#, .NET 10 and PostgreSQL, serving one quinn app for employers, employees and our own support team, Maestro for batch processing, and our AI agents. Development has started, and the foundations the platform will run on for years are being laid now.

This role is fully focused on quinn ONE. Our existing products are not part of it.

02What you will own

• Backend modules, end to end. Design, build, test and run modules and the APIs they expose, from requirements to production, without waiting to be handed a ticket.

• The data. The PostgreSQL model the platform rests on: schema design, migrations, transactions, indexing, and the calculations that must be right to the cent.

• The foundations. Audit trail, logging, versioning of our APIs and services, and the database upgrades that keep the platform current.

• Reliability and security in production. Tests, observability, performance, and data protection by design: an API returns what is needed, not everything that is available. Root causes, not symptoms.

• The architecture, pragmatically. Module boundaries, dependencies, the shared core and the country layers, evolved with clear trade-offs rather than fashionable patterns.

• The engineering bar. Code review, design discussions, and mentoring the developers around you, in Zurich and in our Armenia team.

Where the frontend ends, the backend begins. Our Product Frontend Engineer owns everything on the screen: the app, Maestro’s interface, the component library. You own everything behind it: the domain model, the payroll logic, the APIs, the integrations with authorities, insurers and banks, and the data. You agree the API contract together, and Product decides what gets built.

03How we work

We are AI-native, operationally rather than as a slogan. AI is how a small team ships like a large one, and how one engineer can hold the standard described here.

We expect you to live in these tools and build your own leverage with them: scaffolding, test generation, migration checks, and whatever else takes manual work out of the way.

And we expect the judgement that comes with it. AI writes code that looks right and is subtly wrong: a transaction boundary in the wrong place, a migration that works on test data and locks a table in production. In payroll, an amount is either right or wrong. You take the speed and keep the standard.

04Your first year

In your first month, you set up, learn the system and the people, and merge your first changes. Within 100 days, you have delivered the platform’s audit trail, tested and documented, and fixed the first risks you spotted on arrival.

By month nine, you are the person the team turns to for the quinn backend, and a developer you mentored is delivering features on their own. By the end of the year, the major backend roadmap items are live (logging, the database upgrade, versioning for our APIs and services), and at least one standard you introduced is used beyond your own team.

05Who we are looking for

• You have shipped and run production systems in C# and modern .NET / ASP.NET Core, and you know how they behave under load.

• You know PostgreSQL properly: schema design, transactions, locking, indexing and query optimisation. You read the execution plan before you add a cache.

• You have designed APIs and modules with clear boundaries and manageable dependencies.

• You treat personal and financial data with care. Security is part of how you design, not a review at the end.

• You use AI tools every day, and you can show where they made you faster and where you caught them being wrong.

• You own initiatives independently and raise risks before they become surprises.

• You review constructively, mentor willingly, and write code others can take over.

• English is your working language. German is a plus.

06What makes you stand out

• You have worked where an amount is either right or wrong: payroll, banking, insurance, accounting or tax.

• You have built foundations others relied on for years: an audit trail, observability, API versioning, a data model.

• You have taken a major database upgrade or migration through production without drama.

• You can explain what you built, why you chose your approach, and what changed because of it.

07The team

We are a small, fast and direct team: engineers in Zurich working closely with our Armenia team, and colleagues across Switzerland, Germany and the UK, 40 people in all. Not much process, not much hierarchy. A clear strategy, an ambitious plan, and five values we mean: be open, own it, speak up, keep it simple, bias for action.

We are not filling a seat. If you would rather build the core than maintain the plumbing, we would like to hear from you.

08The facts

• Location: Zürich Wiedikon, hybrid with three days a week in the office; occasional travel to the UK, Germany and our Armenia team

• Role: Senior Backend Developer, individual contributor with technical leadership

• Reporting line: Our Lead Engineers

• Stack: C#, .NET 10, PostgreSQL; modular monolith

• Pensum: 100%

• Start: As soon as possible

• Language: English; German a plus

• Process: A 20-30 minute screening call, an in-person interview in Zürich on your career so far, a focused technical interview with the team (where we may work through a real quinn problem together), and reference calls

09How to apply

Apply with your CV and two short paragraphs: why this role, and why now. If you have something you shipped and are proud of, a system, a module or a write-up of a hard problem, include it. It tells us more than a CV does.

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