Lead Software Engineer, Backend

About Grab and Our Workplace

Grab is Southeast Asia's leading superapp. From getting your favourite meals delivered to helping you manage your finances and getting around town hassle-free, we've got your back with everything. In Grab, purpose gives us joy and habits build excellence, while harnessing the power of Technology and AI to deliver the mission of driving Southeast Asia forward by economically empowering everyone, with heart, hunger, honour, and humility.

Get to know the team

Come join the team that literally serves Grab - Grab's Sentry team. The systems we oversee process billions of network messages for Grab's consumers every day, without fail. We work with the infrastructure, security, and product teams, and are looking for experienced engineers to join our platform team!

Get to know the role

You specialize in building, operating and maintaining leading edge solutions that Just Work™. Built on world-class technology stacks, the software you develop brings our unique on-demand services experience to South-East Asia every day - be it transport, payments, food, or "the awesome things to come". Millions of people depend on the stability and efficiency your solutions provide, which is demanding concerning design and quality but also rewarding. You will be reporting to Engineering Manager II.

This role is onsite based in our Petaling Jaya, Malaysia office.

The Critical Tasks You Will Perform

• You will manage Grab's gateway systems, connecting millions of consumer devices with hundreds of backend services through Grab's service mesh.
• You will work at Grab's Malaysia R&D Centre at Petaling Jaya, integrated with software engineering and product teams to help build rock-solid and secure solutions with the right interface, technology and practices.
• You will be at home in a HA cloud environment and build scalable, zero-downtime network traffic routing and analytics solutions for Grab's "public edge", serving billions of daily requests from millions of Grab consumers and partners every day
• You will independently drive projects across teams end to end, from inception to rollout
• You will find and troubleshoot issues in Grab's entire infrastructure and codebase
• You will develop, maintain, and operate control- and data-plane components, and resolve production incidents
• You will implement quality solutions using Kubernetes, Go and C/C++, and maintain the high bar of standards for code reviews and deployment processes. You mentor peers and promote development and best practices while achieving excellent user experience

What Essential Skills You Will Need

• You have a understanding of TCP/IP, HTTP, and Internet protocols.
• You are proficient in at least one of the following programming languages: Assembly, C, C#, C++, Go, Java, or Pascal.
• You have experience designing and building distributed systems.
• Front-end development experience.
• You are proficient in Bash, Python, and JavaScript, and can navigate third-party codebases for debugging and troubleshooting using common design patterns and algorithms.
• You have led complex technical projects involving multiple partners and technical challenges.
• You have proposed and led the end-to-end implementation of impactful engineering projects.
• You have experience with AI/LLM technologies, including a strong understanding of modern agentic workflows (e.g., MCP and Skills), rapid prototyping ("vibe coding") methodologies, and AI Loop/Harness Engineering to automate the software development lifecycle (SDLC).

Preferred Qualifications

• Expertise in HTTP/2, QUIC, and gRPC.
• Experience designing systems that handle massive concurrency and developing scalable algorithms.
• Experience building monitoring and alerting systems.
• Hands-on experience with Terraform and large-scale Docker/Kubernetes deployments.
• Experience with Consul and/ or Envoy, including familiarity with their codebases and open-source communities.
• Experience working in a startup environment.

Life at Grab

We care about your well-being at Grab, here are some of the global benefits we offer:

• We have your back with Term Life Insurance and comprehensive Medical Insurance.
• With GrabFlex, create a benefits package that suits your needs and aspirations.
• Celebrate moments that matter in life with loved ones through Parental and Birthday leave, and give back to your communities through Love-all-Serve-all (LASA) volunteering leave
• We have a confidential Grabber Assistance Programme to guide and uplift you and your loved ones through life's challenges.
• Balancing personal commitments and life's demands are made easier with our FlexWork arrangements such as differentiated hours

What We Stand For At Grab

We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that provides equal opportunity for Grabbers to grow and perform at their best. We consider all candidates fairly and equally regardless of nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, age, gender, family commitments, physical and mental impairments or disabilities, and other attributes that make them unique.