About the job
Job Title: Lead Backend Engineer
Position Type: Full-Time, Remote
Working Hours: U.S. Business Hours
About the Role
We are seeking a talented and driven Lead Backend Engineer to spearhead the technical operations of our innovative early-stage SaaS platform. In this pivotal leadership role, you will engage in hands-on coding while making critical decisions regarding architecture, infrastructure, and AI systems for a scalable platform.
As the Lead Backend Engineer, you will be responsible for backend architecture, ensuring system reliability, managing AI pipelines, and mentoring a small development team in a dynamic startup setting.
Key Responsibilities
Backend Architecture & Engineering
- Design, develop, and uphold a .NET 8.0 / C# backend utilizing Clean Architecture and Domain-Driven Design (DDD) principles.
- Take ownership of the architecture and codebase for over 14 independently deployed microservices.
- Implement new features, refactor existing systems, and address performance bottlenecks efficiently.
AI Systems & LLM Orchestration
- Architect and manage production-ready AI pipelines across various LLM providers.
- Enhance prompts and workflows for batch processing, personalization, and segmentation at scale.
- Oversee rate limits, failover strategies, and cost optimization across AI providers.
Databases & Data Infrastructure
- Administer MySQL, Redis, and MongoDB in live environments.
- Manage bulk writes, caching strategies, event streams, and analytics pipelines.
- Ensure data consistency and performance across distributed services.
Infrastructure, Reliability & Monitoring
- Own and maintain Linux-based infrastructure, CI/CD pipelines, and service deployments.
- Implement centralized logging, monitoring, alerting, and uptime tracking.
- Proactively identify and mitigate risks related to reliability and scalability.
API Integrations & System Resilience
- Manage over 25 third-party API integrations utilized in production.
- Design retry, fallback, and graceful degradation strategies.
- Ensure stability of the system when external providers encounter failures or performance issues.
Team Leadership & Engineering Standards
- Lead and mentor a small engineering team through code reviews and architectural guidance.
- Establish and uphold engineering standards, workflows, and best practices.
- Collaborate closely with the founder on product direction and technical strategy.
Ideal Candidate Profile
- You are a senior engineer with a hands-on approach, excited about overseeing systems from inception to deployment.
- You thrive as the most experienced technical individual within the team.
- You successfully balance speedy execution with long-term architectural considerations.

