Tech Lead

Experience:
2–3+ years (hands-on)

Location:
Hinjawadi, Pune

Type:
Full-time

About the role

We're a product company building high-impact software used by real customers at scale. You'll be the technical owner for a small, fast team—making architecture decisions, writing production code, reviewing PRs, and unblocking others. If a problem is stuck, you dive in and resolve it.

What you'll do

• Own architecture & system design:
  Break down requirements, design scalable services (APIs, background jobs, caching, queues), review trade-offs, and keep things simple.
• Ship features end-to-end:
  frontend (or NestJS) backend SQL (Postgres/MySQL). Build secure, reliable, well-tested code.
• Scale data & SQL:
  Model schemas, write optimized queries, add indexes, handle migrations, and debug performance (EXPLAIN, slow query logs).
• Reliability & security:
  Logging, metrics, alerts; authn/authz; rate-limiting; input validation; basic cloud hardening.
• Technical leadership:
  Lead stand-ups, estimate work, manage sprint risks, conduct PR reviews, and mentor developers.
• Unblock the team:
  When others are stuck, pair, debug, or temporarily take over to land the milestone on time.
• Quality bar:
  Establish coding standards, testing strategy (unit/integration/e2e), CI checks, and release practices.

Must-have skills

• System design:
  Clear reasoning about data models, caching, consistency, failure modes, and trade-offs.
• Frontend:
  (App Router), React hooks, forms, API integration, error/empty/loading states, basic accessibility.
• Backend:
  (Express/NestJS), REST (GraphQL nice-to-have), async jobs, file handling, pagination, auth (sessions/JWT, refresh).
• SQL:
  Strong at schema design, joins, transactions, indexes, and performance tuning.
• Problem solving:
  You can take an ambiguous problem, break it down, propose options, and execute.
• Git & CI:
  Clean commits, code reviews, lint/test pipelines, environment-based configs.
• Ownership:
  You treat deadlines seriously, communicate early, and do what it takes to land the release.

Nice to have

• TypeScript, Zod/Valibot, Prisma/TypeORM/Knex
• Postgres features (JSONB, window functions), Redis, message queues
• Cloud (AWS/GCP/Azure), Docker; basic IaC
• Security & compliance basics (PII/PHI handling, audit logs)
• Charts/analytics, file export (CSV/PDF), webhooks, webhook signature verification
• Observability (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus/Grafana, Sentry)

Work style & expectations (read before applying)

• Outcomes over hours:
  This role requires
  high ownership
  and
  flexible hours when needed
  to meet product deadlines. Critical releases may involve late evenings or weekends.
• Bias to action:
  If something is blocking delivery, you escalate early and/or fix it yourself.
• Team leadership:
  You set pace and quality, and you're comfortable being the point person when the team needs direction.

What success looks like (first 90 days)

• 30 days:
  Fully onboarded; shipping small features; owning 1 service/module; improving tests/CI.
• 60 days:
  Leading a mini-project; removing a major performance bottleneck; stabilizing error budgets.
• 90 days:
  Trusted architect for a product area; mentoring 1–2 devs; consistently delivering on committed timelines.

Interview process (fast & practical)

1. Intro call (20–30 min)
   — background, expectations, culture fit
2. AI-OFF coding lab (60–75 min)
   — debugging + tests + SQL reasoning
3. System design (45–60 min)
   — design an end-to-end feature with trade-offs
4. Pair session (45 min)
   — read unfamiliar code, fix a bug, review a PR
5. Founder/Lead chat (20 min)
   — ownership, communication, and ways of working