Senior Backend Engineer for proxy and unblocking

Apify's mission is to help anyone get more value from the web with automation, AI agents, and web scraping.

Why?

We believe that humans have better things to do than filling forms, compiling huge Excel sheets of copy-pasted data, or watching thousands of videos to determine whether they include a specific brand logo.

Those are jobs for machines.

And just as in the real world, we have tools that make our lives easier, we should have tools to make our lives easier on the web.

Web automation has a profound impact. Our users automate service unsubscriptions to save people money, and they collect billions of rows of data from all over the world for AI training, protection of consumers, or finding lost children. We give AI chatbots the context to interact intelligently, and we’re developing novel ways to work with generative AI like ChatGPT.

To support this mission, we're looking for a Senior Backend Engineer to work on proxy infrastructure and unblocking.

Anti-bot systems are constantly evolving, and we need to keep our scraping infrastructure ahead of them. You'll expand Apify Proxy, research anti-scraping services, and build internal tools that use browser fingerprinting, human-like interactions, and session management to keep data flowing.

If you enjoy solving hard technical problems and contributing to open-source proxy libraries, this role might be for you.

What you'll be working on:

• Building robots that behave and act like real users to automate human activities on the web

• Working in a small cross-functional team with other experienced hackers

• Expanding the capabilities of Apify Proxy, adding more protocols and more underlying providers, and implementing internal unblocking capabilities

• Researching existing anti-scraping services and implementing new internal services to overcome them by utilizing various browser fingerprinting methods, human-like browser interaction, session management, and others

• Contributing to proxy-chain and impit, our open-source libraries for proxy handling and request impersonation

Our tech stack:

• Frontend: React.js, styled-components, Storybook, Cypress, Playwright

• Backend: TypeScript/Node.js, Next.js, Nest.js, Express.js, Docusaurus, Jest

• Infra: AWS, Kubernetes, Helm, MongoDB, Redis, DynamoDB, S3, GitHub Actions

• Monitoring: Grafana, Prometheus, Mezmo, Sentry, PagerDuty

• Tools: GitHub, ZenHub, Notion, Google Workspace

• Process: two-week sprints, code reviews, tests, automating whatever we can, and deploying multiple times per day.

They say there are no perfect candidates, but you might be the one if you have:

• A strong technical background or great professional track record (we're looking for exceptional candidates, no matter the seniority)

• 2+ years of industry experience building proxy, fingerprinting, or unblocking services

• Strong skills in developing and debugging with TypeScript/Node.js, or equivalent skills in another language and the ability to learn quickly

• Familiarity with Linux

• Experience with AWS, other public clouds, or any technology mentioned above (nice to have)

• An experiment-driven and collaborative mindset

• Good communication skills in English

Why should you work at Apify?

• Space, support, and autonomy for personal growth, with a direct impact on our success

• Full-time position in Prague (Lucerna Palace) or Brno (Titanium) 🏰

• Option to work remotely 🛋️

• Flexible working hours (perfect for both night owls 🦉 and early birds 🐥)

• Nobody counts holidays as long as the work gets done 💪

• Stock options and profit sharing 💰

• We welcome pets, kids, and bikes at the office 🐕👨‍👧

• Epic team buildings and offsites 🚢 with biking, canoeing, and other adventures 🪂

• Solid education and training budget, conference tickets, internal “Eat & Learn” sessions, and the possibility to work across teams 👩🏼‍💻👨🏽‍💻

• Generous hardware budget 💻

• Free lunches every day when you’re in the office 🌮🍱🍜🍕🥡

• Unlimited supply of ☕ & 🍺 and snacks

• Free entry to the wonderful Prague Zoo 🐘

• Free Multisport card 🏋

• Ping-pong, chess, PS5, lightsabers, foosball league after lunch.

For more details about Apify and what it is like to work with us, see our Careers page.