Lead Backend Software Engineer
$70,000–$90,000 year
RemoteUnited States or Chicago, Illinois, United States
Job Summary
Lead the technical design and hands-on implementation of core backend APIs and services in Python and FastAPI. Set architectural direction for domain models, service boundaries, and API contracts while translating product priorities into delivery plans. Personally lead critical-path development, code reviews, release planning, and incident response to ensure production reliability. Directly manage 3 to 4 senior backend engineers through one-on-ones and career development, while overseeing nearshore engineers or consultants as needed. Build reliable integrations across geospatial, media, and third-party systems, and develop ETL processes for imagery and operational data. Partner with product, frontend, and operations teams to prioritize tradeoffs and ship high-quality backend systems predictably.
Required Qualifications
- 7+ years of experience in backend development
- strong proficiency in Python
- Demonstrated experience as a hands-on technical lead while directly managing engineers
- Very strong ability to reason from first principles about backend architecture, workflow modeling, API boundaries, data consistency, security, and operational failure modes
- Strong product judgment and ability to turn ambiguous business needs into clear technical plans and deliverable milestones
- Proven ability to mentor senior engineers, give direct feedback, and raise team performance
- Strong communication skills and ability to lead across product, frontend, data, operations, and business teams
- Experience building production APIs with FastAPI or similar Python frameworks
- Strong understanding of relational data modeling, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy or comparable ORM libraries, and database migration tools such as Alembic or Flyway
- Experience with AWS backend services such as ECS, Lambda, RDS, S3, IAM, and related services
- Experience with Docker, Git, and designing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines with GitHub Actions, AWS CodePipeline, or similar tools
- Practical fluency with AI coding agents such as Claude Code and Cursor
Desired Qualifications
- Experience working in a dynamic startup environment
- Experience managing distributed teams or external engineering partners
- Knowledge of infrastructure as code, preferably Terraform and Terragrunt
- Experience with observability tools such as Datadog and Sentry
- Experience designing authentication and authorization flows
- Experience with 2D and 3D geospatial data
- Experience with ETL pipeline development, data migration, or large-scale unstructured data processing
- Experience building agentic systems with tools such as LangGraph, Claude Code SDK, and Amazon Bedrock
- Experience modernizing legacy systems while preserving production behavior
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