Engineering Lead (Player-Coach) - Node.js/React.js - AI-Native Teams
HybridBrussels, Brussels Capital, Belgium
Job Summary
Own end-to-end engineering outcomes for a core product team, driving delivery from discovery through deployment while maintaining high technical standards for Node.js, React, and MongoDB systems. Champion the pragmatic integration of AI tools by defining guardrails, coaching engineers on responsible usage, and measuring throughput improvements without compromising security or human accountability. Partner closely with Product and Design to translate requirements into robust solutions, manage cross-team dependencies, and optimize workflows to reduce operational toil. Lead talent development through performance management and mentorship, ensuring a culture of psychological safety and continuous improvement.
Required Qualifications
- Strong professional experience building and operating production systems, typically 7+ years
- Sound engineering fundamentals and technical design judgment
- Ability to remain hands-on enough to guide design, review implementations critically and help solve difficult production problems
- Experience with distributed systems, service boundaries and API design
- Experience with robust RESTful APIs
- Experience with third-party integrations
- Experience with data consistency
- Experience with Git workflows
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines
- Experience with automated deployments
- Experience working with cloud environments
- Experience with Docker
- Experience with Kubernetes
- Experience improving observability
- Experience with release readiness
- Experience with incident response
- Experience directly managing, coaching and developing engineers
- Ability to create clarity, give direct feedback, handle performance conversations fairly and help a team perform and grow
- Skilled at working with Product, Design and other stakeholders to make pragmatic trade-offs on scope, sequencing, technical risk and delivery
- Hands-on experience using coding agents and AI tools to improve engineering throughput and quality
- Ability to drive their responsible adoption across the team, defining workflows and guardrails, coaching engineers, and measuring where they create real value
- Accountability for driving their responsible adoption across the team, defining workflows and guardrails, coaching engineers, and measuring where they create real value
- Experience in insurance, fintech or another regulated and operationally complex domain is a strong advantage
- Motivation to develop a strong understanding of the business domain you lead
Desired Qualifications
- Experience with Java
- Experience with C#
- Experience with Go
- Experience with Python
- Experience with modern ecosystems other than TypeScript, Node.js, React and MongoDB
- Familiarity with GCP
- Familiarity with Docker
- Familiarity with Kubernetes
- Experience improving observability
- Experience with release readiness
- Experience with incident response
- Experience in insurance
- Experience in fintech
- Experience in another regulated and operationally complex domain
Hiring someone like this?
Get your role in front of qualified candidates on Sorce.