Principal Engineer, Distributed Systems (Full Stack)

Gather AI; India; On-site; INR 4,800,000 - 7,600,000; Full time

Job summary

Gather AI is hiring a Distributed Systems Architect to lead the architecture of our enterprise SaaS platform, evolving mature systems, and guiding decisions from databases to service patterns.

You will align backend, frontend, platform, and infrastructure, modernize production systems, mentor engineers, and promote first‑principles thinking to deliver scalable, reliable, low‑latency services.

Qualifications

• Mastery of performance-sensitive REST APIs, caching, and core distributed systems concepts.
• Expert PostgreSQL with upgrades, query tuning, replication tradeoffs, and schema evolution.
• Cloud and containers with Azure/AWS and production-grade Kubernetes/Docker.
• Backend development experience in Node.js and/or Python.
• Observability, CI/CD, SRE fundamentals, and security hygiene (IAM, secrets).

Responsibilities

• Own Architecture: Align backend, frontend, platform, and infra into enterprise-grade architecture.
• Reflect Excellence: Replace firefighting with predictable execution and upgrade critical infrastructure.
• Set Direction: Drive testing strategies, validation guardrails, and system design concerns.
• Evolve Systems: Modernize production systems using DB-level strategies and platform primitives.
• Mentor: Elevate the organization by sharing practices and mentoring senior engineers.
• Exhibit First-Principles Thinking: Understand data systems, latency-sensitive services, and failure modes.

Skills

Distributed Systems

PostgreSQL

Azure

AWS

Kubernetes

Docker

Node.js

Python

CI/CD

SRE basics

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

CI/CD Tools

Job description

About Us

Are you ready to build the future of supply chain? At Gather AI, we're not just creating software; we're pioneering a new era of warehouse intelligence. We've developed a groundbreaking, vision-powered platform that uses autonomous drones and existing equipment to capture real-time data, completely digitizing workflows that have historically been manual and error-prone. This means facilities operate smarter, safer, and more efficiently, ultimately redefining "on-time, in full" delivery. If you're looking for an opportunity to contribute to truly transformative technology and make a significant impact in a vital industry, Gather AI is the place for you. We're leading the charge in the rapidly evolving robotics industry, and we invite you to join us in reshaping the global supply chain, one intelligent warehouse at a time.

About You

As a Distributed Systems Architect at Gather AI you will serve as a technical anchor for our engineering organization. This role is for someone who thrives on the challenge of evolving mature, complex SaaS systems, setting technical direction, architecture, and ensuring our platforms remain reliable and perform as we scale. To be successful in this role, you must be able to design, evaluate, and guide decisions across the entire stack—from database internals to distributed service patterns.

What You’ll Do

• Own Architecture: Align backend, frontend, platform, and infrastructure decisions into a coherent, enterprise-grade architecture.
• Reflect Excellence: Replace "firefighting" with predictable execution. You will lead the effort to retire scalability and reliability debt, safely upgrade critical infrastructure, and reduce single-threaded dependencies.
• Set Direction: Set the standard for engineering technical hygiene. You will drive high-level decisions on testing strategies, validation guardrails, and system design concerns that directly impact delivery speed and maintainability.
• Evolve Systems: Modernize and scale existing production systems by applying database-level strategies (schema evolution, replication tradeoffs) and platform primitives (orchestration, runtime constraints) as architectural tools.
• Mentor: Elevate the organization by establishing shared practices, aligning terminology, and mentoring senior talent across the engineering team.
• Exhibit First-Principles Thinking: Establish a deep understanding of data systems, latency-sensitive services, and failure modes.

Requirements:

• Distributed Systems: Mastery of performance-sensitive REST APIs, caching strategies, and core distributed systems concepts.
• Relational Data Systems: Expert-level PostgreSQL (upgrades, query tuning, replication tradeoffs, and schema evolution) and advanced SQL.
• Cloud & Containers: Deep experience with Azure and/or AWS and production-grade Kubernetes/Docker.
• Backend Development: Strong production experience in Node.js and/or Python.
• Reliability & Security: Hands-on experience with Observability (logs, metrics, traces), CI/CD, SRE fundamentals (SLIs/SLOs), and security hygiene (IAM, secrets management).

Bonus points for...

• Domain Expertise: Experience in logistics, warehouse systems, or robotics-adjacent platforms is a plus, but not required. We value your ability to apply sound architectural judgment to new problem spaces.
• Future Scale: If you have operated at a slightly smaller scale but can reason clearly about "what breaks next" (e.g., multi-regional architectures or advanced data governance), we will help you bridge that gap.
• Organizational Maturity: While we value experience driving org-wide standards, we don't expect perfection on day one. We look for the intent to elevate our shared practices as you build trust.
• AI-Ready: At Gather, we are at the leading edge of both applied classical ML and next-gen LLM/VLM AI. Come prepared to work with the latest and greatest tooling.

Why This Role?

In this position, you won't just be writing code; you will be designing the future of a scaling organization with the autonomy to solve high-stakes problems.