Lead Software Engineer - Systems

Freshworks; Chennai District; On-site; INR 1,500,000 - 2,000,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Diversity and inclusion initiatives

Job summary

Freshworks in Chennai is searching for a Lead Systems Engineer to architect resilient backend systems for their SaaS offerings. The role involves overseeing the entire software development lifecycle and ensuring high performance and security.

The ideal candidate will have 6 to 8 years of experience in backend systems, a degree in Computer Science or Engineering, and expertise in cloud platforms. Responsibilities include optimizing system performance and leading engineering best practices.

Qualifications

• 6 to 8 years of experience in high-performance backend systems.
• Proven ability to scale systems through multiple architectural iterations.
• Hands-on experience with major cloud platforms.

Responsibilities

• Lead architecture and design of backend systems for SaaS products.
• Own the software development lifecycle, including optimization.
• Ensure high availability and security of production environments.

Skills

Backend system development

Distributed architectures

Cloud platforms (AWS or GCP)

API design

Data structures & algorithms

Education

Degree in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

CI/CD pipelines

NoSQL databases

Job description

About the Role

At Freshworks, we are building the foundational systems that power internet-scale SaaS products. As a Lead Systems Engineer, you will architect services that are lightning-fast, secure, and built to last. Operating across multiple products and platforms, you will own the design, deployment, and long‑term evolution of critical infrastructure that impacts everything from login to logs.

If you thrive on building for immense scale, thinking deeply in multi‑tenant architectures, and sweating the operational details of performance, extensibility, and fault tolerance—you will love this role.

1. Roles & Responsibilities

In this role, you will lead engineering excellence from the front lines by owning the following core mandates:

• Architect & Design: Architect, design, and develop resilient, modular backend systems and clean APIs tailored for multi‑tenant, cloud‑native environments.
• End-to-End Ownership: Own the entire software development lifecycle—from initial requirement gathering and technical scoping to implementation, code optimization, and production support.
• Scale & Optimize: Spearhead continuous efforts around system refactoring, performance optimization, and scaling existing core frameworks to match accelerating business demands.
• Engineering Guardrails: Drive and evangelize industry‑best practices for Object‑Oriented Programming (OOP), SOLID principles, advanced design patterns, and systemic scalability.
• Production Excellence: Ensure high availability (99.99%+), robust security configurations, and comprehensive monitoring/observability metrics across all production environments.
• Cross‑Functional Partnership: Partner closely with Site Reliability Engineers (SREs), Product Managers (PMs), and peer Tech Leads to deliver cohesive, platform‑wide capabilities.
• Mentorship & Quality: Cultivate high engineering standards by conducting rigorous, constructive code and design reviews across the engineering pod.

2. Impact You Can Create

As a technical anchor at Freshworks, your contributions will directly shape our platform's future:

• Power Internet‑Scale SaaS: Your architectural decisions will directly impact millions of global users, ensuring the foundational systems powering our products remain seamless and reliable.
• Drive Autonomy out of Ambiguity: You will have the creative license to take highly ambiguous, complex problems and transform them into concrete, elegant, and highly extensible systems from scratch.
• Optimize Global Velocity: By implementing advanced multi‑region deployments, smart rate‑limiting, and modern observability frameworks, you will significantly reduce system latency and production overhead.
• Elevate Engineering Culture: By championing clean code practices and mentoring mid‑level engineers, you will leave a lasting footprint on Freshworks’ technical talent capability.

3. Skills & Qualifications

Experience & Background:

• Years of Experience: 6 to 8 years of dedicated experience building high‑performance backend systems, distributed architectures, or core infrastructure.
• Proven Track Record: Demonstrated experience building systems from the ground up and successfully scaling them through multiple architectural iterations.
• Education: Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a highly related technical field.

Technical Competencies:

• System Design (HLD/LLD): Advanced capability in gathering functional and non‑functional requirements to design scalable, highly available, fault‑tolerant, end‑to‑end systems.
• Data Structures & Algorithms (DSA): Expertise in solving and optimizing complex problems with a strict eye on time and space complexity.
• Data & API Modeling: Mastery of API design, relational databases (RDBMS), NoSQL databases, data modeling, and distributed queuing/messaging systems.
• Cloud & DevOps: Hands‑on experience working with major cloud platforms (AWS or GCP), automated CI/CD pipelines, and modern DevOps tooling.
• Distributed Systems Concepts: Strong familiarity with building for high observability, custom rate limiting, and multi‑region infrastructure layouts.

Behavioral & Leadership Traits:

• Technical Communication: Exceptional ability to articulate complex technical concepts, justify architectural tradeoffs, and clearly pitch suitable tech stacks to diverse stakeholders.
• Analytical Problem‑Solving: Sharp logical reasoning and analytical skills to systematically debug and untangle complex system failures.
• Agile Execution: A strong bias for action with the ability to move incredibly fast in a dynamic environment without sacrificing technical depth or architectural integrity.

At Freshworks, we have fostered an environment that enables everyone to find their true potential, purpose, and passion, welcoming colleagues of all backgrounds, genders, sexual orientations, religions, and ethnicities. We are committed to providing equal opportunity and believe that diversity in the workplace creates a more vibrant, richer environment that boosts the goals of our employees, communities, and business.