Backend & Cloud Engineer

Have you ever rallied behind a stubborn engineering problem like Mark Watney in The Martian, sure that good code and a little iteration will get you home? Do you tackle AI features with the boundless wonder of WALL-E uncovering something green in a desert? Have you ever shipped under deadline with the steady rigour of Katherine Johnson in Hidden Figures, knowing the numbers had to be right because real people were counting on them?

We at Malao are on a mission to transform the entertainment industry, creating inspiring stories with characters audiences love that spark change in our world. Across innovative technology platforms, original films and unique location-based experiences, at Malao you'll dive into a game-changing environment where we combine human intuition with artificial intelligence to bring the world more Meaningful Entertainment.

Imagine spending more time watching movies instead of endlessly scrolling, trying to find the right one. Twinkle is an entertainment discovery app that aims to become the go-to destination for users overwhelmed by content choices, being a cinematic compass that combines the best of artificial intelligence with human intuition to transform how people find and share films they'll love. With successful fundraising from investors and the European Institute of Innovation & Technology, we're now working to build the B2C app and bring it to market. Behind Twinkle you'll find a truly international team, based mainly between Munich and Australia, with frequent collaboration with partners in the US.

• Owning and scaling Twinkle's backend (AWS serverless / CDK), including maintaining the Python-based Movie Sync Service and AI enhancement pipeline
• Designing and evolving the GraphQL API (AWS AppSync) — building Lambda resolvers for complex business logic, optimizing direct database resolvers, and ensuring the API is fast, reliable, and a pleasure to work with from the Flutter side
• Making the infrastructure genuinely scale-ready by thinking through connection pooling, caching strategy, cost controls, and performance under load before those problems become launch-day crises
• Integrating and maintaining external services, including content databases and LLMs
• Managing database schema evolution via Liquibase migrations across dev, staging, and production environments, with full environment isolation and rollback support

• A competitive compensation package: a fixed salary plus virtual shares (VSOP), so you share in the company’s success
• Monthly team events, such as free dinners, game nights, internal hackathons and active offsites
• Access to any AI and productivity tools you need to do your best work
• A paid cinema ticket every month (your choice of movie)
• Wellpass subscription, giving you free access to over 400 gyms, fitness clubs and spas in Munich alone
• A great office in the heart of Munich’s innovative business quarter, with the flexibility to work remotely
• Support with relocation to Munich, including access to the WERK1 apartment program (flat for only €850 per month on short-term contract)
• ... and being part of a team building projects with the potential to make a real, positive difference in our world

• You have hands-on production experience with AWS — specifically Lambda, AppSync, Aurora (or another managed relational database), Cognito, EC2 and CDK — and you understand how these services behave under real load
• You are fluent in TypeScript and write backend code that is clean and well-tested
• You think seriously about scalability and cost from the start — you have an instinct for where serverless architectures break down under load and you know how to design around those failure modes before they are realised
• You operate in an AI-native way — you actively use AI-assisted development tools to move faster and think more clearly, and you stay genuinely curious about how AI capabilities can be integrated meaningfully into the products you build
• You have a flexible approach to challenges, coupled with the readiness to pivot as required in a dynamic startup environment
• Malao's values of truth, justice, courage, gratitude and joy resonate with you, and you thrive in an environment of open communication and candor