Principal Engineer (Backend)

We are growing rapidly and are looking for a hands-on Principal Engineer (Backend) to lead a critical engineering team from our tech hub in Bangalore. This team is at the heart of our business, responsible for both our core product engineering and the strategic customization and integration of our platform for major global clients. This is a technical leadership role where you will split your time between managing the team and contributing as a senior developer. We expect you to spend roughly 30-40% of your time on hands-on coding, technical design, and solving complex client integration challenges.

The core responsibilities for the job include the following:

Technical Leadership and Architecture:

• Lead system design and technical architecture for both product features and client customizations, creating Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERD), system architecture diagrams, and API specifications.
• Develop comprehensive technical specification documents and solution design documents based on Statement of Work (SoW) requirements.
• Act as a hands-on technical authority; conduct code reviews, contribute to critical path development, and troubleshoot complex production issues.
• Architect, design, and guide the implementation of scalable, resilient, and secure services using Python, Django, and Django REST Framework.
• Lead our cloud infrastructure strategy on Microsoft Azure, with deep hands-on expertise in Kubernetes (AKS) for container orchestration, scaling, and management.

Hands-On Execution and Delivery:

• As a contributing developer, you will design, write, test, and deploy code for critical services, client-specific features, and integration endpoints.
• Explore and integrate modern technologies, including generative AI and machine learning services, to build smarter, more adaptive retail solutions.
• Estimate effort, define project timelines, and manage technical delivery from conception through completion.
• Lead the end-to-end delivery of complex projects, from core platform features to high-priority client customizations.
• Drive the adoption of best practices in software engineering, including CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and SRE principles.

Client Solutions and Customization:

• Architect and implement scalable solutions for client-specific requirements, creating detailed technical documentation for both internal and client stakeholders.
• Lead the technical delivery of client integrations, working directly with client technical teams when necessary.
• Design and build robust, configurable systems that can be tailored for different retail environments without requiring one-off code forks.

Team Leadership and Process Excellence:

• Lead, mentor, and grow a high-performing team of software engineers.
• Foster a culture of innovation by encouraging experimentation with and adoption of AI-powered development tools to improve code quality, testing, and system reliability.
• Utilize a data-driven approach to improve team performance and system reliability through DORA metrics and Service Level Objectives (SLOs).
• Manage team capacity and allocation across the dual streams of product roadmap and client commitments.
• Manage project priorities, track risks and blockers, and ensure transparent communication with all stakeholders.

Requirements:

• As well as your startup/co-founding experience and your ability to inspire, lead, mentor, and code, you'll also have:
• Minimum of 3 years of people management experience in a start-up.
• Minimum of 5 years of recent experience launching and maintaining software products.
• Minimum of 5 years of recent software development experience (in the last 8 years).
• Prior experience as a founder in growth-stage startups.
• Prior experience in managing a P& L, budgeting, trade-offs, headcount, cash burn, etc.
• Excellent communication skills, oral and written, meaning that you can speak with clarity to customers, succinctly with investors, and with precision to engineers.
• Valid passport and any other essentials to travel offshore.