Lead Backend Engineer

Requirements:

• 8+ years building large-scale distributed systems, including 3+ years owning backend architecture for a sizable platform.
• Deep expertise in backend languages and frameworks (Node.js/TypeScript or similar) for complex, high-performance systems.
• Proven experience with complex processing pipelines (file parsing, transformation, code generation, or similar compute-intensive workflows).
• Strong experience with distributed systems architecture (microservices, event-driven systems, message queues, and job orchestration).
• Real-time collaboration systems: proven expertise building and scaling WebSocket servers, handling conflict resolution, and managing connection state at scale.
• Track record of performance optimization in real-world conditions (high concurrency, large file processing, memory-efficient pipelines, batching strategies).
• Strong ability to partner with frontend on API design and system tradeoffs; understanding of frontend constraints and use cases.

Demonstrated ownership of:

• Backend architecture at scale (service decomposition, API versioning, backwards compatibility).
• Database design and optimization (SQL/NoSQL, indexing, query optimization, migration strategies).
• Infrastructure and DevOps (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD, cloud platforms: AWS/GCP/Azure).
• Observability (APM, distributed tracing, logging, metrics, performance regression monitoring).

Nice-to-Have:

• ML/AI integration experience (LLM APIs, embeddings, code generation models).
• Experience with code AST manipulation or compiler/transpiler development.
• Open-source contributions (backend frameworks, tooling, or infrastructure).
• Frontend exposure: understanding of React, TypeScript, and modern frontend build systems.