Lead Engineer - Hands-On Architect & Team Builder

AI Chopping Block; Petaling Jaya; Hybrid; MYR 180,000 - 300,000; Full time

Job summary

KIRA is seeking a Lead Engineer to take technical ownership of complex products and systems, guiding the engineering bar across the team. This is a hands-on leadership role. You will design systems, write and review code, solve difficult engineering problems, mentor engineers and drive initiatives from idea to production.

You should be comfortable balancing architecture and implementation while moving quickly in a fast-paced environment. Hybrid work model with a local office presence preferred.

Qualifications

• Strong software engineering background with production systems experience.
• Deep technical expertise in backend, frontend, APIs, databases or cloud infrastructure.
• Strong system design and architecture skills with experience making technical decisions for complex or high‑scale systems.
• Strong coding ability and willingness to remain hands-on.
• Proven experience leading major engineering projects or providing technical leadership to other engineers.
• Comfortable reviewing code and debugging complex issues with production systems.

Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and execution of major products, features and engineering initiatives.
• Design scalable, reliable and maintainable systems across backend, frontend, APIs, databases and infrastructure.
• Stay hands-on with engineering through coding, prototyping, code reviews and production problem-solving.
• Make architecture decisions and trade-offs balancing speed, scalability and reliability.
• Break down ambiguous problems into clear engineering solutions and execution plans.
• Set a high bar for code quality, testing, security, observability and reliability.
• Review technical designs and code from other engineers and provide actionable feedback.
• Mentor engineers and strengthen technical capability across the team.
• Identify risks and bottlenecks before they become larger problems.
• Collaborate with engineering, product, design and AI teams to ship high-quality products quickly.

Skills

Software engineering

System design

Hands-on coding

Leadership

Production systems

Job description

KIRA is seeking a Lead Engineer to take technical ownership of complex products and systems, guiding the engineering bar across the team. This is a hands-on leadership role. You will design systems, write and review code, solve difficult engineering problems, mentor engineers and drive initiatives from idea to production.

You should be comfortable balancing architecture and implementation while moving quickly in a fast-paced environment. Hybrid work model with a local office presence preferred.