Staff Software Engineer

Meraki Labs; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 2,500,000 - 3,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Meaningful ESOP

High autonomy and ownership

Job summary

A deep-tech venture studio is seeking a Staff Engineer with over 9 years of experience to lead their engineering organization. Responsibilities include architecting distributed systems using Java, optimizing performance, and integrating AI into their infrastructure. The ideal candidate will have deep experience in high-scale FinTech environments and strong mentoring skills. This full-time, on-site position offers competitive compensation and the chance to work closely with the founders.

Qualifications

• 9+ years of professional backend engineering experience.
• 3+ years in a leadership role such as Staff, Principal, or Architect.
• Deep familiarity with high-scale FinTech environments.

Responsibilities

• Architect high-concurrency, distributed systems using Java.
• Optimize systems for sub-millisecond latency.
• Lead AI integration in core infrastructure.

Skills

Backend engineering

Java expertise

Distributed systems knowledge

AI integration

Mentorship

Communication

Tools

Kubernetes

Postgres

Event-sourcing

Job description

Meraki Labs is at the forefront of India's deep-tech innovation landscape, operating as a dynamic venture studio founded by visionary entrepreneur Mukesh Bansal (Founder - Myntra, Cure Fit) and Peeyush Ranjan (Former Google VP and Flipkart CTO). Our mission is to build and rapidly scale AI-first, "moonshot" startups—transforming groundbreaking ideas into next-generation industry leaders. Through a hands‑on, intensive partnership model, we work closely with exceptional founders, driving these ventures from concept to impact.

The Role

We are seeking a Staff Engineer (9+ Years) to serve as the foundational technical leader for our engineering organization. In this role, you will define the long‑term technical vision, oversee complex cross‑team architectures, and ensure our systems are built for massive scale, security, and resilience.

You are a "Force Multiplier." While you remain a formidable Individual Contributor capable of tackling our hardest "impossible" problems, your primary impact is felt through architectural governance, mentoring Senior Engineers, and bridging the gap between business strategy and system design.

This is a full‑time position, on‑site, 5 days from office in HSR Layout, Bengaluru (Bangalore)

What You’ll Do

• System Design & Governance: Architect high‑concurrency, distributed systems using Java. You will own the "macro-architecture," ensuring microservices interact seamlessly and predictably.
• Scale & Performance: Solve the "hard problems" of scale. You will optimize for sub‑millisecond latency, data consistency in distributed environments, and multi‑region availability.
• AI Transformation: Lead the integration of AI into our core infrastructure. You’ll architect how we use LLMs and Agentic workflows at the system level to drive business value.
• Mentorship & Culture: Set the "Gold Standard" for engineering excellence. You will mentor Lead and Senior engineers, cultivate a culture of rigorous RFCs (Request for Comments), and drive best practices in observability and testing.
• Cross‑functional Influence: Partner with Product, Security, and Finance leadership to ensure technical investments align with company growth and compliance.

What We’re Looking For

• The Experience: 9+ years of professional backend engineering, with at least 3 years in a Staff, Principal, or Architect capacity.
• The FinTech Pedigree: Deep experience in high‑scale FinTech environments. You must have lived through the complexities of ledgers, payments, and high‑frequency data.
• Java Mastery: Expert‑level knowledge of the JVM, including memory management, garbage collection tuning, and the high‑performance Java ecosystem.
• Distributed Systems Expert: You have a "battle‑tested" understanding of CAP theorem, consensus algorithms, distributed locking, and event‑sourcing.
• AI Forward: You are actively experimenting with AI. You understand how to build systems that aren't just "wrappers" but leverage AI for internal optimization, predictive scaling, or intelligent routing.
• Communication: The ability to explain a complex distributed system failure to a CEO and a junior dev in the same hour, adapting the depth perfectly for both.

Preferred Technical DNA

• Languages: Java (expert), Python (for AI/Scripting).
• Persistence: Mastery of RDBMS (Postgres optimization) and specialized stores (Vector DBs, Time‑series, Key‑Value).
• Infrastructure: Kubernetes at scale, Service Mesh (Istio/Linkerd), and Cloud‑native design patterns.

Preferred Background

• Experience at high‑growth FinTechs.
• Proven track record of taking a product from 0 to 1 or managing a high‑scale 1 to N product.

Why Join Us?

• An opportunity to directly work with founders.
• High autonomy and ownership of the frontend roadmap.
• Meaningful ESOP.
• Competitive compensation and the opportunity to shape the engineering culture of a growing team.