Senior 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

On Grab's Identity (IAM) team you will build class leading registration, authentication, and authorization systems for all user participants in the Grab ecosystem tailored for SEA markets. This includes Grab services and external partner scenarios. Your mission will be to deliver authentication mechanisms that provide proof of user identity while minimizing user friction and accommodating mobile, web, and voice environments. We take pride in building distributed systems that have a impact on the lives of millions of users in our endeavor to out-serve the underserved population. Terms such as Idempotency, CAP theorem, and Distributed Consensus are not just theoretical terms for us but have a bearing on the systems we build.

Get to Know the Role

As a leader in an exciting and dynamic industry that is evolving daily, we are looking for experienced Engineers to join our team. As part of this role, you will build large-scale systems that can handle 100K+ RPS, with 4 nines of availability SLAs. You will work on world-class authentication and authorization systems that are regionally compliant, and follow stringent security, FinTech, and other regulatory standards.

This role is onsite based in our Petaling Jaya, Malaysia office and you will be reporting to the Senior Engineering Manager

The Critical Tasks You Will Perform

• You will design and develop scalable backend services and APIs that support multiple client applications, ensuring and reliability in a distributed systems environment
• You will lead the full lifecycle of features from requirements gathering through production deployment, collaborating with product, design, and business teams to translate requirements into technical solutions
• You will write clean, maintainable, and well-tested code that serves as a reference for the team; establish and uphold coding best practices
• You will lead technical discussions and architecture reviews within the engineering team, providing thoughtful feedback and driving decisions that improve system design
• You will mentor and support junior engineers through code reviews, technical guidance, and knowledge sharing, fostering a culture of learning
• You will ensure system robustness by implementing comprehensive monitoring, logging, and observability practices; identify and address performance bottlenecks
• You will lead incident response and troubleshooting efforts during on-call rotations, demonstrating resilience and decisiveness in resolving production issues
• You will collaborate with QA teams to validate product requirements, ensure test coverage, and maintain deployment stability
• You will continuously improve the codebase by identifying technical debt, proposing engineering solutions, and implementing optimizations that enhance system efficiency
• You will stay informed about relevant technology trends and emerging best practices, bringing ideas to the team

What Essential Skills You Will Need

• You have 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with substantial work in distributed systems and backend service development
• You have expertise shipping production-grade applications or backend services as the primary engineering owner
• You have proficiency in Golang, including core syntax, concurrency handling, and optimization techniques (or demonstrated excellence in another programming language with genuine willingness to master Golang)
• You have experience with Computer Science fundamentals, including algorithms, data structures, and system design principles
• You have hands-on experience with relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL), including query optimization and performance tuning
• You have demonstrated experience with cloud platforms (AWS or GCP) and Infrastructure as Code tools (Terraform, AWS CloudFormation)
• You have proficiency with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and Agile development methodologies
• You have experience running and maintaining production services, including service observability, monitoring, and incident resolution
• You have an ability to use AI tools and coding agents to enhance productivity and code quality

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with microservices architecture and API design patterns
• Familiarity with containerization technologies (Docker, Kubernetes)
• Knowledge of caching strategies and message queuing systems
• Experience mentoring or leading junior engineers
• Contributions to open-source projects or technical community involvement

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.