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Lead Fullstack Engineer

💰 $160,000 - $220,000

EngineeringSoftware DevelopmentTechnologyFullstack

🎯 Role Definition

The Lead Fullstack Engineer is a pivotal technical leadership role responsible for steering the end-to-end design, development, and delivery of our software applications. This position combines deep hands-on coding expertise across the entire technology stack with the strategic oversight and mentorship necessary to guide a high-performing engineering team.

As a lead, this individual is the technical authority for their project or product domain. They are accountable for architectural decisions, code quality, and the overall technical health of the systems they oversee. They act as a crucial bridge between product management, design, and engineering, translating business objectives into robust, scalable, and secure technical solutions. This role is not just about writing code; it's about elevating the entire team's technical capabilities and ensuring our engineering practices align with long-term company goals.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Senior Fullstack Engineer
  • Senior Backend Engineer (with strong frontend experience)
  • Senior Frontend Engineer (with strong backend experience)

Advancement To:

  • Principal Engineer
  • Engineering Manager
  • Staff Engineer / Architect

Lateral Moves:

  • Solutions Architect
  • DevOps Lead
  • Technical Product Manager

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead the architectural design, development, testing, and deployment of complex, multi-tiered applications and services from end to end.
  • Guide and mentor a team of engineers through technical challenges, fostering a culture of collaboration, innovation, and continuous improvement.
  • Make high-level design choices and dictate technical standards, including software coding standards, tools, and platforms, to ensure consistency and quality across projects.
  • Own the entire software development lifecycle for your team's projects, from initial technical design and prototyping to final deployment and post-launch operational support.
  • Conduct rigorous code reviews and provide constructive feedback to team members to maintain high standards of code quality, performance, and security.
  • Champion and implement modern DevOps and SRE principles, including building and maintaining robust CI/CD pipelines, automated testing frameworks, and infrastructure-as-code.
  • Collaborate closely with product managers, UX/UI designers, and other business stakeholders to refine requirements and translate them into actionable technical specifications and user stories.
  • Act as the primary technical point of contact for your domain, effectively communicating complex technical concepts, risks, and project status to both technical and non-technical audiences.
  • Spearhead the troubleshooting and resolution of critical production issues, leading root cause analysis and implementing preventative measures to improve system reliability.
  • Drive the evaluation, selection, and integration of new technologies, frameworks, and tools to enhance our product capabilities and development velocity.
  • Define and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level objectives (SLOs) for the applications your team supports, ensuring operational excellence.
  • Decompose large, monolithic systems into scalable, resilient microservices, and design the APIs that enable seamless communication between them.
  • Ensure all software development adheres to stringent security best practices, participating in security audits and proactively addressing potential vulnerabilities.
  • Manage and optimize the cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure) that hosts our applications, focusing on scalability, reliability, and cost-efficiency.
  • Develop and maintain comprehensive technical documentation, including system architecture diagrams, API specifications, and runbooks.
  • Lead technical discovery and proof-of-concept initiatives to explore the feasibility of new features and major architectural changes.
  • Facilitate technical planning, estimation, and a_gile ceremonies, ensuring the team has a clear understanding of their goals and deliverables.
  • Partner with data science and analytics teams to design and implement data pipelines and integrate machine learning models into user-facing products.
  • Take ownership of the developer experience for your team, continually seeking to remove friction from the development, testing, and deployment processes.
  • Act as a hiring manager or key participant in the recruitment process, assessing the technical and cultural fit of potential new team members.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
  • Contribute to the organization's broader technology strategy and engineering roadmap.
  • Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
  • Represent the team in cross-functional guilds, architecture review boards, and technical forums.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Fullstack Proficiency: Expert-level command of both a server-side language (e.g., Node.js, Python, Go, Java) and a modern frontend JavaScript framework (e.g., React, Vue.js, Angular).
  • System Architecture & Design: Demonstrated ability to design scalable, resilient, and maintainable distributed systems, microservices, and event-driven architectures.
  • Cloud & DevOps Expertise: Deep experience with a major cloud provider (AWS preferred) and proficiency in building and managing CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI, GitHub Actions) and container orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes).
  • Database Mastery: Advanced knowledge of both relational (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL) and NoSQL (e.g., MongoDB, DynamoDB, Redis) database design, optimization, and management.
  • API Design: Strong proficiency in designing, building, and maintaining robust and secure APIs, with experience in both REST and GraphQL patterns.
  • Testing & Quality Assurance: A firm commitment to quality with hands-on experience implementing comprehensive testing strategies, including unit, integration, and end-to-end tests.
  • Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Practical experience using tools like Terraform or CloudFormation to automate infrastructure provisioning and management.
  • Security Principles: Solid understanding of web application security principles (OWASP Top 10) and experience implementing security best practices throughout the SDLC.
  • Observability & Monitoring: Proficiency with monitoring, logging, and tracing tools (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Datadog, ELK Stack) to ensure system health and performance.
  • Agile Methodologies: In-depth understanding and practical application of Agile/Scrum development methodologies and ceremonies.

Soft Skills

  • Technical Leadership: The ability to inspire, motivate, and guide a team of engineers, leading by example and fostering a positive and productive environment.
  • Mentorship & Coaching: A passion for developing talent, providing constructive feedback, and helping junior and mid-level engineers grow their skills.
  • Strategic Problem-Solving: The capacity to analyze complex problems from a business and technical perspective and architect elegant, effective solutions.
  • Exceptional Communication: The ability to articulate complex technical ideas clearly and concisely to diverse audiences, from engineers to executive stakeholders.
  • Stakeholder Management: Skill in building strong relationships with product, design, and business counterparts to ensure alignment and smooth execution.
  • Decision-Making: Confidence in making critical technical decisions, weighing trade-offs, and taking ownership of the outcomes.
  • Pragmatism & Adaptability: A practical approach to technology and the ability to adapt to changing priorities and new challenges in a fast-paced environment.
  • Project Ownership: A strong sense of accountability for the end-to-end success of projects, from initial concept to long-term maintenance.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's Degree in a relevant field or equivalent demonstrated practical experience in a professional software engineering environment.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's Degree in a relevant field.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Software Engineering
  • Information Systems

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 7-10+ years of progressive experience in professional software development.

Preferred:

  • A minimum of 2 years in a formal or informal leadership capacity (e.g., Senior Engineer, Tech Lead) with a proven track record of mentoring engineers and leading significant technical projects from inception to completion.
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