Director Engineering

Wadhwani Foundation; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Wadhwani Foundation in Bengaluru seeks an experienced Director, Engineering (Backend Architect) to own backend architecture, steer the technical vision, and ensure scalable, reliable services. This role combines hands‑on coding with strategic leadership.

You will mentor a growing team, collaborate with product, DevOps and QA, and drive architectural excellence, performance tuning and modern patterns. Knowledge of Node.js, Express, databases, and CI/CD is essential to deliver robust product

Qualifications

• Proven track record leading backend architecture for scalable services.
• Strong Node.js expertise with Express and horizontal scaling.
• Experience with relational databases (Postgres/MySQL) and NoSQL (MongoDB).
• Familiarity with CI/CD (Jenkins) and container orchestration (Kubernetes).
• Excellent leadership and communication to mentor team.
• Knowledge of streaming/messaging (Kafka, RabbitMQ) is a plus.
• Frontend knowledge with React/React Native is beneficial.

Responsibilities

• Architect backend architecture for scalable services.
• Lead design discussions and code hands-on ~50%.
• Mentor developers and ensure code quality.
• Collaborate with DevOps, QA, product to drive roadmap.
• Drive process improvements and adopt new technologies.

Skills

Backend architecture leadership

Node.js expertise

Scalability & performance

Architectural acumen

CI/CD & DevOps

Leadership & communication

Kafka & RabbitMQ knowledge

Frontend knowledge (React/React Native

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Jenkins

PostgreSQL

MySQL

MongoDB

Job description

We are seeking an experienced Director, Engineering (Backend Architect) based in Bangalore, who will take strategic ownership of our backend services' architecture and drive the technical vision for new features. This role demands a leader with excellent knowledge of building horizontally scalable backend services using Node.js, and a strong understanding of performance tuning and modern architectural patterns. You will not only lead design discussions but also actively engage in hands‑on coding, mentor your team, and collaborate closely with product, DevOps, and QA to ensure robust, efficient, and impactful product offerings.

Key Responsibilities

• Architectural Leadership: Responsible for the overall architecture of our backend services. Lead and drive design and architecture discussions for new features, ensuring scalability, reliability, and maintainability.
• Technical Excellence & Mentorship: Mentor and guide other developers through feature implementation, setting a high bar for code quality and ensuring design principles are consistently upheld through rigorous code reviews.
• Hands‑on Contribution: Dedicate significant time (at least 50%) to hands‑on coding activities, directly owning the implementation of complex features, conducting Proof of Concepts (POCs), debugging performance issues, and proactively improving system scalability.
• Cross‑functional Collaboration: Work closely with DevOps and Quality Assurance teams to ensure stable, efficient deployments and releases. Partner intimately with the product team to provide critical technical inputs and insights, shaping the overall product roadmap and improving our offerings.
• Innovation & Process Improvement: Drive process innovation within the engineering team, identifying and implementing new ideas to enhance quality and speed. Stay abreast of emerging technologies and platforms, leading their strategic adoption where beneficial.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

• Execution Efficiency (Product Development): Quality of code, reusability, code churn/stability, on‑time delivery (per release), team velocity, resource planning.
• Process Innovation: Introduction of new ideas to improve quality and speed, adoption rate of new technologies/platforms.
• Product Engagement: Quality of inputs and insights provided to Product Managers for roadmap shaping, effectiveness of engagement with end‑users to understand personas and digital habits, product usage (volume of users), and feature usage tracking.
• Leadership: Effectiveness in mentoring/coaching team members, upskilling initiatives, ability to navigate ambiguous setups, and collaboration on feedback and inputs from users/deployment teams.

Skills & Experience

• Experience: Overall experience in backend architecture and development, with demonstrated ability to lead design and architecture discussions for new features.
• Node.js Expertise: Excellent understanding of Node.js, including its limitations and workarounds. Proven knowledge of designing and building backend services that can scale horizontally using Node.js and Express.
• Scalability & Performance: Deep knowledge of performance tuning and the fundamental design principles behind building scalable applications.
• Database Proficiency: Experience with data modeling in RDBMS (e.g., Postgres/MySQL) and NoSQL databases (e.g., MongoDB).
• Architectural Acumen: Up‑to‑date with the latest Architecture trends and Design Patterns in the JavaScript/Node.js community. Awareness of trade‑offs involved in building complex microservices‑based architectures.
• DevOps & CI/CD: Familiarity with CI/CD using Jenkins and deploying Docker containers with orchestration tools like Kubernetes. Working knowledge in DevOps practices (logging, horizontal/vertical scaling, cost reduction, optimization).
• Leadership & Communication: Strong ability to lead a team of backend developers (in‑house and at vendor sites). Excellent communication and interpersonal skills are essential.
• Good to HaveKnowledge of streaming and messaging platforms like KAFKA and RabbitMQ.
• Knowledge of frontend development using React or React Native.