Order Tracking R&D Trainee - Backend Engineer (Go / PHP) - Bilingual Mandarin

About CWILL

CWILL (pronounced "quill") is a post-purchase and retention suite trusted by 30,000+ Shopify and DTC brands. Our products cover order tracking, returns and exchanges, shipping protection, loyalty and referrals, product reviews, pop-up and email marketing, AI chat and SEO (cwill.com). Our product and customer teams are in the US, and our engineering teams are in China.

About the Role

CWILL Order Tracking helps Shopify merchants keep shoppers informed after checkout, with branded tracking pages, real-time shipment updates and delivery notifications. As an R&D Trainee, you'll work on backend development for our Shopify apps and grow into an engineer who can independently own feature modules. Our core PHP/Swoole projects are under active development, and Go is our long-term direction.

Tech stack: Go, PHP/Swoole, MySQL 8.x, Redis, RabbitMQ, AWS.

Location: Cary, NC (hybrid). We are unable to hire in other states; relocation is required.

What You'll Do

• Build features, integrate APIs and fix issues in our Go and PHP/Swoole projects.
• With guidance from senior engineers, read code, investigate logs, write tests, take part in code reviews and deliver tasks on schedule.
• Work with product, QA and engineering to clarify requirements, share progress and raise issues, and write technical notes where needed.

Requirements

• Programming fundamentals: solid grasp of at least one backend language; able to build a small feature and explain how it works. Go or PHP preferred, but you don't need to know both. Coursework, personal projects and internships all count.
• Backend fundamentals: understand the basics of HTTP, APIs, JSON, databases, caching and message queues; able to write basic SQL, use Git and track down problems from logs.
• Learning and collaboration: you read documentation, test things hands-on and ask specific questions; you share progress and blockers proactively, and take code review feedback on board.
• Language: able to clarify requirements, discuss technical topics and write progress updates in Mandarin Chinese with our China-based engineering team; able to read English technical documentation and error messages (tools are fine).
• AI tools: willing to use company-provided Codex and Claude Code in your work; able to understand, review and test the code you submit, and follow our data security rules. No prior experience with specific AI tools required.

Nice to Have

• Project experience with Go, PHP/Swoole, Shopify apps or third-party API integrations.
• Experience with MySQL 8.x, Redis or RabbitMQ, or exposure to AWS, Linux or Docker. Production operations and performance tuning experience is not required.

Benefits

• Starting pay: $80K-$110K depending on experience, open to negotiation
• 401(k)
• PTO
• Paid holidays
• Insurance
• Mentorship and a clear growth path from trainee to engineer