Lead Software Engineer

Position: Engineering Lead / Engineering Manager

Department: Engineering / Technology

Location: Vadodara / Onsite

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience: 4+ Years

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Engineering Lead / Engineering Manager to lead the design, development, delivery, and technical direction of modern software products powered by AI, Machine Learning, full-stack JavaScript technologies, and AWS cloud infrastructure.

The ideal candidate will combine strong hands-on engineering capability with technical leadership, architecture, people management, delivery ownership, and product thinking.

You should be comfortable working across the technology stack, making architecture decisions, reviewing code, mentoring engineers, solving complex technical problems, and ensuring engineering teams consistently deliver reliable, scalable products.

Key ResponsibilitiesEngineering Leadership

• Lead and mentor a team of software engineers, AI/ML engineers, and developers.
• Own technical execution across one or more products or engineering workstreams.
• Establish engineering standards, development practices, and coding guidelines.
• Conduct code reviews and ensure maintainability, security, and scalability.
• Identify technical risks and drive their resolution.
• Mentor engineers and support their technical growth.
• Participate in hiring, technical interviews, onboarding, and performance evaluations.
• Build a culture of ownership, engineering quality, and continuous improvement.Architecture & Technical Strategy
• Design scalable architectures for web, mobile, SaaS, AI, and enterprise applications.
• Make technology and architecture decisions based on product requirements and business constraints.
• Define service boundaries, APIs, databases, integrations, and infrastructure.
• Evaluate build-vs-buy decisions and third-party technologies.
• Identify technical debt and establish plans to address it.
• Ensure architecture supports scalability, reliability, security, and maintainability.
• Create and maintain technical architecture and system-design documentation.AI & Machine Learning
• Lead the development and integration of AI/ML capabilities into products.
• Work with technologies including:
• Generative AI
• LLMs
• RAG
• AI agents
• Embeddings
• Vector databases
• Machine Learning models
• AI APIs
• Integrate models and APIs from providers such as OpenAI, Gemini, Anthropic, and other platforms.
• Guide engineers in building production-grade AI applications.
• Establish approaches for AI evaluation, reliability, observability, and cost optimization.
• Evaluate emerging AI technologies and determine practical use cases.
• Ensure AI implementations meet product, security, and performance requirements.Full-Stack Engineering

Lead and contribute to applications built using modern JavaScript technologies.

Preferred experience with one or more of:

MERN

• MongoDB
• Express.js
• React
• Node.jsMEAN
• MongoDB
• Express.js
• Angular
• Node.jsMEVN
• MongoDB
• Express.js
• Vue.js
• Node.jsAdditional experience with:
• TypeScript
• Next.js
• REST APIs
• GraphQL
• Microservices
• Event-driven architecture
• WebSockets
• Redis
• PostgreSQLis highly desirable.

Hands-On Development

This is a leadership role, but the candidate should remain technically hands-on.

Responsibilities may include:

• Designing and implementing critical features.
• Reviewing and improving existing code.
• Troubleshooting complex production issues.
• Building prototypes and technical POCs.
• Reviewing architecture and implementation approaches.
• Supporting engineers with difficult technical problems.
• Contributing directly to high-priority engineering initiatives.The expectation is not to manage exclusively through meetings; the Engineering Lead/Manager should be capable of understanding and contributing to the underlying technology.

AWS & Cloud Engineering

• Design and manage cloud-native applications on AWS.
• Work with services such as:
• EC2
• S3
• RDS
• Lambda
• ECS / EKS
• VPC
• IAM
• CloudWatch
• API Gateway
• CloudFront
• Route 53
• Define appropriate cloud architecture for scalability and reliability.
• Optimize infrastructure performance and cost.
• Work closely with DevOps engineers on CI/CD and deployment infrastructure.
• Ensure appropriate security and access-control practices.DevOps & Engineering Practices
• Establish and improve CI/CD pipelines.
• Promote automated testing and deployment.
• Implement development, staging, and production environments.
• Support containerization using Docker.
• Work with Kubernetes where applicable.
• Establish monitoring, logging, and alerting practices.
• Improve deployment frequency and reliability.
• Support incident management and root-cause analysis.Product & Delivery Collaboration
• Work closely with Product Managers and Project Managers to translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Break complex requirements into engineering initiatives and deliverables.
• Provide technical estimates and identify dependencies.
• Balance product timelines with engineering quality.
• Communicate technical risks and trade-offs to leadership.
• Ensure engineering execution aligns with product priorities.Engineering Quality

Establish strong engineering practices around:

• Code reviews
• Testing
• Security
• Performance
• Documentation
• Version control
• CI/CD
• Observability
• Technical debt managementDrive continuous improvement in engineering processes and product quality.

Required Technical SkillsCore

• 4+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Strong JavaScript / TypeScript experience.
• Strong experience with Node.js.
• Strong experience with at least one modern frontend framework:
• React
• Angular
• Vue.js
• Strong experience with MongoDB or another production-grade database.
• Strong understanding of REST APIs and backend architecture.
• Strong Git/GitHub experience.
• Hands-on AWS experience.AI/ML

Strong practical understanding of at least some of:

• Generative AI
• LLMs
• Prompt engineering
• RAG
• Embeddings
• Vector databases
• AI APIs
• AI agents
• Machine Learning fundamentals
• AI evaluationCloud
• AWS architecture and services.
• Docker.
• CI/CD.
• Linux.
• Cloud security fundamentals.
• Monitoring and logging.Good to Have
• Python.
• PyTorch / TensorFlow.
• LangChain / LlamaIndex.
• PostgreSQL.
• Redis.
• Kafka or other messaging systems.
• Kubernetes.
• Terraform.
• GraphQL.
• Microservices architecture.
• Serverless architecture.
• Event-driven systems.
• React Native / Flutter.
• Elasticsearch / OpenSearch.
• API gateways.
• OAuth / JWT.
• Automated testing frameworks.People Management

The Engineering Lead / Manager will be responsible for:

• Mentoring engineers.
• Assigning technical ownership.
• Conducting technical one-on-ones.
• Setting engineering goals.
• Reviewing individual performance.
• Identifying skill gaps.
• Creating development plans.
• Supporting recruitment and technical interviews.
• Building high-performing engineering teams.
• Managing technical conflicts and dependencies.Engineering Metrics

Track and improve meaningful engineering metrics such as:

• Delivery predictability
• Deployment frequency
• Lead time for changes
• Production defect rate
• Mean time to recovery
• Code quality
• Test coverage
• System availability
• Infrastructure cost
• Technical debt
• Engineering productivityMetrics should be used to identify systemic problems rather than simply measure individual developers.

Candidate Profile

We are looking for someone who:

• Can move comfortably between architecture, coding, debugging, and people leadership.
• Understands both business requirements and technical constraints.
• Makes pragmatic technology decisions rather than choosing technologies based on trends.
• Can evaluate AI technologies critically rather than treating AI as a solution to every problem.
• Understands the difference between a prototype and a production system.
• Can identify when a system needs optimization, redesign, or simplification.
• Takes ownership of engineering outcomes.
• Can communicate complex technical decisions clearly to both engineers and business stakeholders.
• Is comfortable working in a fast-moving product environment.Preferred Educational Background
• B.Tech / B.E. – Computer Science / IT
• MCA / M.Tech
• Equivalent technical education or demonstrated professional experience
• Relevant experience and technical capability are more important than the specific degree.