Tech Lead Backend Engineer Tier 1 College

<div><strong>About the role:</strong><br>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</div><div><br></div><div style="margin: 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d; margin: 4px 0; padding: 0;"><u>What we're looking for</u><br><b style="font-weight: 700; font-weight: 700;">Must have:</b></div><ul style="margin: 4px 0 4px 24px; padding: 0; list-style-position: outside;"><li style="margin: 2px 0px; padding: 0px; color: rgb(29, 28, 29); font-weight: bold;"><strong>5+ years of software engineering experience, primarily on backend systems.</strong></li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Strong hands-on expertise in <strong>Node.js (TypeScript is a plus).</strong></li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Solid grounding in relational databases (PostgreSQL / MySQL): schema design, indexing, query optimisation.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Production experience with <strong>MongoDB and Redis.</strong></li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Working knowledge of Kubernetes and containerised deployments.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Hands-on DevOps experience on AWS or Azure: compute, networking, IAM, managed databases, CI/CD pipelines.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Track record of leading technical design and mentoring engineers, formally or informally.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Strong fundamentals in system design, distributed systems, and API design.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science or a related field from a Tier 1 or Tier 2 institution.</li></ul><div style="margin: 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d; margin: 4px 0; padding: 0;"><b style="font-weight: 700; font-weight: 700;">Good to have:</b></div><ul style="margin: 4px 0 4px 24px; padding: 0; list-style-position: outside;"><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Python experience for scripting, data pipelines, or services.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Exposure to AI/ML: integrating LLM APIs, building RAG or agentic workflows, or working with ML teams on productionising models.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Infrastructure as code (Terraform, Pulumi, CloudFormation, or Bicep).</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Experience with message queues and event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS).</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Experience with observability stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, OpenTelemetry).</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">Prior experience in a fast-growing product company or startup.</li></ul><div style="margin: 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d; margin: 4px 0; padding: 0;"><strong>Who you are</strong></div><ul style="margin: 4px 0 4px 24px; padding: 0; list-style-position: outside;"><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">You lead by example and are comfortable being the most hands-on engineer in the room.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">You communicate clearly with technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">You balance long-term architecture with shipping iteratively.</li><li style="margin: 2px 0; padding: 0; color: #1d1c1d;">You take ownership of outcomes, not just tasks.</li></ul><div>&nbsp;</div>