Senior Backend Developer (Node.js/NestJS) for TravelTech Booking Platform

Backend Developer (Node.js / NestJS) - Travel Terns Platform (Stage 1) About the Project Travel Terns is a premium, community-driven group travel platform focused on social trip experiences, trust, and retention. We're building the platform in stages - Stage 1 is the core web platform + admin panel that will validate the product and give us a scalable backend foundation. This role is for Stage 1 only (Stage 2 is the mobile app build, which is frontend/React Native focused and doesn't require this hire). We need a strong backend developer to build the API and server-side systems that power the customer-facing web app and the admin panel. What You'll Be Building You'll own backend development for: Core APIs & Business Logic Authentication (social login, email/password, phone OTP) Home feed (trending trips, upcoming departures, destination categories, banners) Group trip listings (search, filters, pricing, seat availability, wishlist) Trip detail data (itinerary, pricing breakdown, occupancy, reviews, FAQs) Booking system (advance/partial payments, booking summary, passenger details, room preferences, coupon/coins redemption) Group travel engine (member lists, trip countdown, pre-trip chat, checklist system, notifications) FIT (individual) enquiry flow and callback/WhatsApp inquiry handling AI Travel Planner (Lite) - budget/interest-based trip suggestions using OpenAI API Wallet & coins system (balance, reward history, referral rewards, redemption) Profile data (bookings, wishlist, coins, travel history, saved travellers, verification badge) Blog module (content served to web, managed via admin) Admin Platform Trip management (create/edit trips, itineraries, media, seats, departures) Booking management (tracking, payment status, refunds, traveller details) User management (users, referrals, coins, reviews) Content management (destination pages, banners, FAQs, testimonials, blog) Infrastructure Scalable backend architecture from day one Payment integration (Razorpay) Push notification setup (Firebase Cloud Messaging) Real-time systems for chat/notifications (Socket.IO, Redis, BullMQ for jobs/queues/retries/emails) Media storage (AWS S3 / Cloudflare R2) Security (rate limiting, input validation, CAPTCHA, Helmet) API documentation (Swagger/OpenAPI) Monitoring/logging (Sentry, Pino, CloudWatch/BetterStack) Tech Stack Backend: Node.js, NestJS, TypeScript Database: PostgreSQL with Prisma ORM Real-time/Jobs: Redis, Socket.IO, BullMQ Auth: Better Auth, JWT, OTP login, Google OAuth, Apple OAuth Payments: Razorpay AI: OpenAI API Messaging: Firebase Cloud Messaging (push), Resend (email) Hosting: AWS / DigitalOcean (backend), Neon / Supabase / RDS (Postgres), Vercel (web frontend - not this role) CI/CD: GitHub, GitHub Actions Docs/Monitoring: Swagger/OpenAPI, Sentry, Pino What We're Looking For Strong hands-on experience with Node.js, NestJS, and TypeScript in production Solid PostgreSQL + Prisma (or similar ORM) experience - comfortable designing schemas from scratch Experience with Redis, queues (BullMQ or similar), and real-time systems (Socket.IO) Experience integrating third-party APIs: payment gateways (Razorpay or Stripe/similar), OAuth providers, OpenAI or other LLM APIs Understanding of scalable, secure backend architecture (rate limiting, validation, auth best practices) Comfortable working from a scope document/spec and communicating proactively about blockers, estimates, and trade-offs Good Git hygiene - clean commits, PRs, and comfortable with a GitHub Actions CI/CD flow Engagement Terms - Please Read Carefully 1. No vibe coding. You are expected to understand, review, and be able to explain every line of code you ship - architecture decisions, edge cases, and trade-offs included. If code is found to be pushed without genuine understanding (e.g. copypasted from an AI tool without review, or you can't explain your own implementation when asked), you will be removed from the project immediately, and no further payments will be made for that work.2. AI tools are welcome for productivity. You're encouraged to use AI (Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT, etc.) to speed up boilerplate, repetitive code, tests, or documentation - as long as you fully understand, review, and take ownership of everything that ships. How to Apply Please include: Relevant past projects (NestJS/Node.js backend, ideally with real-time or booking/marketplace systems) Your experience integrating payments and third-party APIs Your availability and estimated timeline for Stage 1 for more information refer attached document