Lead Backend Engineer

Lead Backend Engineer Location: Fully Remote  Preferred Time Zones: GMT+1 or CST Reports To: Principal Engineer / VP of Engineering (matrixed via product pod) Team: Cross‑Functional Product Pod (Senior PM, Lead BE, BE, FE, QA) About  We’re a rapidly growing SEO software company and full‑service digital agency helping websites improve their Google performance. From Fortune 500 companies to Silicon Valley startups, our clients trust us to drive results. Role Overview We’re hiring Lead Backend Engineers to staff new cross‑functional product pods. As a Lead, you are the technical owner for your pod’s backend systems—setting direction, shipping high‑quality code, and ensuring reliability, performance, and developer experience for your domain. You’ll collaborate closely with your Senior PM and cross‑functional partners to deliver outcomes quickly and sustainably. Unlike the Principal (who sets cross‑platform standards), Leads own a product surface area end‑to‑end and apply platform standards within their pod. Important: We’re seeking proven Leads (not “step‑ups”). You should already have operated as a Lead in a high‑velocity environment. What You’ll Do Own backend architecture and delivery for your pod, from design to production operations. Design and build services and APIs using Python 3, Django REST Framework, Celery , and PostgreSQL . Instrument, monitor, and optimize your services using Sentry, Datadog, Grafana ; define SLOs/SLIs and alerting in collaboration with DevOps. Ensure production readiness : testing strategies, CI/CD pipelines, rollout/rollback, on‑call quality, and post‑incident improvements. Drive technical quality via code reviews, pairing, ADRs, and documentation aligned to platform standards. Collaborate with Product on scope, trade‑offs, and iterative delivery; ensure rapid ramp and consistent throughput. Contribute to hiring by participating in technical assessments as needed. What Success Looks Like (First 60–90 Days) Ramp in ~2 weeks and ship meaningful code into production. Deliver a first iteration of a key pod feature or service with clear metrics (latency, error rate, cost) and a plan for iteration. Adopt and apply platform standards from the Principal across your pod’s services. Requirements 5+ years professional experience with Python 3 and Django REST Framework (as a Lead for at least 1 year in title or scope). Strong experience with Celery for asynchronous processing and PostgreSQL (schema design, indexing, query tuning). Proven ownership of service design and operations in a multi‑service or microservice environment. Hands‑on experience with observability (Sentry, Datadog, Grafana) and CI/CD in production. Comfortable with Git‑based workflows (GitLab preferred) and collaborating in code at pace. Excellent communication skills and cross‑functional collaboration with PM/Design/QA. Startup‑ready: thrive in a high‑velocity environment; comfortable with iterative delivery. Nice to Have Exposure to ClickHouse or Elasticsearch for analytics/search. Familiarity with OpenAPI or DRF Spectacular . Knowledge of Kubernetes concepts and cloud‑native operations. Experience improving developer productivity within a team (tooling, templates, automation). Salary & Benefits Competitive compensation based on location and experience. 15 Days Paid Time Off + Christmas Day + New Year’s Day paid. Work Location & Time Zones Fully Remote — work from anywhere . Collaboration across pods works best from GMT+1 or CST time zones (preferred). Notes on Team Structure We’re staffing six (6) product pods , each typically composed of Senior PM, Lead BE, BE, FE, and QA . Leads are assigned to pods based on their technical background and product fit.