Lead Backend Engineer

Recrew AI; Bengaluru Urban; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Recrew AI, Bengaluru-based data-driven marketing tech company, is seeking a Lead Backend Engineer to own design, delivery and operation of core data and marketing platforms.

You will build secure REST and gRPC services in Go, design scalable databases, and manage production systems on GCP with Terraform and CI/CD pipelines. You will mentor engineers and drive reliability and performance improvements across the stack.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience building and owning backend systems for large-scale, production applications.
• Proficiency in Go for backend service development (primary language for this role).
• Hands-on experience designing and operating REST and/or gRPC APIs at production scale.
• Relational databases such as PostgreSQL and managing production data at scale.
• Containerised deployments using Docker and Kubernetes in CI/CD pipelines.
• Experience with on-call and incident response.

Responsibilities

• Design and evolve backend services on GCP, considering scalability, reliability, maintainability and cost.
• Own backend systems end-to-end, including production stability and incident resolution.
• Build secure, scalable REST and gRPC APIs using Go from development through production.
• Collaborate with product managers and business stakeholders to translate requirements into technical solutions.
• Modernise legacy systems with refactoring, platform improvements, and Terraform IaC.
• Maintain high engineering standards through automated tests and code reviews.
• Mentor junior engineers and contribute to a high-ownership engineering culture.

Skills

Go

REST API

gRPC

CI/CD

On-call

Mentoring

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

PostgreSQL

Datadog

OpenTelemetry

Pact

Tools

Terraform

Docker

Kubernetes

GitHub Actions

PostgreSQL

Cloud SQL

Datadog

OpenTelemetry

Pact

Job description

Type: Full-time

About Company

A global leader in data-driven marketing research, serving over 4,000 brands across Asia-Pacific. The company has over 25 years of experience and access to 130+ million consumer panelists worldwide.

It combines survey, behavioral, and purchase data to deliver actionable insights. Backed by approximately $848M in funding, it operates at meaningful scale.

The team moves fast, thinks deeply, and takes real ownership of its work.

Position Overview

As a Lead Backend Engineer, you will own the design, delivery, and operation of the company's core data and marketing platforms. You'll work end-to-end — from shaping requirements with product and business teams to running reliable production systems at scale. This role sits at the intersection of engineering excellence and real business impact.

Role & Responsibilities

• Design and evolve backend services on GCP, making deliberate trade-offs around scalability, reliability, maintainability, and cost
• Own backend systems end-to-end, including production stability, performance tuning, and incident resolution
• Build and deliver secure, scalable REST and gRPC APIs using Go, from development through production
• Collaborate with product managers and business stakeholders to translate requirements into sound technical solutions
• Modernise legacy systems through thoughtful refactoring, platform improvements, and infrastructure-as-code with Terraform
• Maintain high engineering standards through clean code, automated testing (Testcontainers, Pact), and rigorous code reviews
• Mentor junior engineers and actively contribute to building a strong, high-ownership engineering culture

Must Have Criteria

• 7+ years of experience building and owning backend systems for large-scale, production applications
• Proficiency in Go for backend service development (primary language for this role)
• Hands-on experience designing and operating REST and/or gRPC APIs at production scale
• Solid experience with relational databases (e.g., PostgreSQL/Cloud SQL) and managing production data at scale
• Experience with containerised deployments using Docker and Kubernetes in a CI/CD pipeline (GitHub Actions or equivalent)
• Demonstrated experience owning production systems — including on-call, incident response, and reliability improvements

Nice to Have

• 3+ years working with Google Cloud Platform — specifically GCP Kubernetes Engine, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, and Cloud Storage
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code using Terraform in a GCP environment
• Familiarity with observability tooling — specifically Datadog and OpenTelemetry for distributed tracing and monitoring
• Domain experience in market research, ad-tech, data platforms, or consumer analytics
• Contributions to open-source projects or active participation in technical communities
• Experience working with microservices architectures and contract testing tools like Pact

What We Offer

• Opportunity to build and own systems that power insights for 4,000+ global brands
• Work with a modern, well-defined tech stack — Go, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, Datadog
• Collaborative, high-ownership engineering culture with a strong focus on craft and impact
• Exposure to large-scale consumer data platforms across the Asia-Pacific region