Tech Lead Backend Engineer (Tier 1 College)

About the role:

Our team is looking for a hands-on Tech Lead to own the technical direction of our backend platform. You will design and build scalable services, guide a team of engineers, and take end-to-end ownership from architecture through deployment and operations. This is a player-coach role: you will still write code every day while setting the technical bar for the team

What we're looking for

Must have:

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, primarily on backend systems.
• Strong hands-on expertise in Node.js (TypeScript is a plus).
• Solid grounding in relational databases (PostgreSQL / MySQL): schema design, indexing, query optimisation.
• Production experience with MongoDB and Redis.
• Working knowledge of Kubernetes and containerised deployments.
• Hands-on DevOps experience on AWS or Azure: compute, networking, IAM, managed databases, CI/CD pipelines.
• Track record of leading technical design and mentoring engineers, formally or informally.
• Strong fundamentals in system design, distributed systems, and API design.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field from a Tier 1 or Tier 2 institution.

Good to have:

• Python experience for scripting, data pipelines, or services.
• Exposure to AI/ML: integrating LLM APIs, building RAG or agentic workflows, or working with ML teams on productionising models.
• Infrastructure as code (Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, or Bicep).
• Experience with message queues and event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS).
• Experience with observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, OpenTelemetry).
• Prior experience in a fast-growing product company or startup.

Who you are

• You lead by example and are comfortable being the most hands-on engineer in the room.
• You communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.
• You balance long-term architecture with shipping iteratively.
• You take ownership of outcomes, not just tasks.