Lead Software Engineer, Backend - Service Mesh

Grab; Petaling Jaya; On-site; MYR 120,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Grab is seeking a Lead Software Engineer for its Service Mesh Platform. In this senior technical leadership role, you will guide architectural strategies, oversee teams, and drive a secure and scalable mesh infrastructure across the microservices architecture.

You should have 6+ years of software engineering experience, deep expertise in service mesh technologies, and proficiency in Go. Join us in creating an inclusive workplace dedicated to individual growth.

Qualifications

• 6+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years in distributed systems.
• Deep expertise with service mesh technologies (Istio, Envoy, Linkerd, or equivalent).
• Proficiency in Go, Java, or Python.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the multi-year technical strategy for the service mesh platform.
• Architect and review complex changes to the mesh infrastructure.
• Lead architecture decisions that cross team boundaries.

Skills

Service mesh technologies

Distributed systems

Networking

Platform infrastructure

Go

Kubernetes

Cloud-native infrastructure

DevOps practices

AI tool adoption

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Tools

Istio

Envoy

Kubernetes

Docker

AWS

GCP

Azure

Job description

Position Overview

Lead Software Engineer – Service Mesh Platform

As a senior technical leader, you will guide the architectural direction and execution of our service mesh platform, overseeing the team of engineers, partnering with other functional teams, and driving a secure, observable, and scalable mesh infrastructure across our microservices architecture.

Critical Tasks You Will Perform

• Define and lead the multi‑year technical strategy for the service mesh platform, including data plane and control plane evolution, capability roadmap, and migration paths from legacy systems.
• Architect and review complex changes to the mesh infrastructure (Istio, Envoy or equivalent), with a focus on reliability, scalability, and security.
• Manage platform‑wide concerns: traffic management, service discovery, mTLS and identity, observability, rate limiting, and cross‑cluster communication.
• Lead architecture decisions that cross team boundaries and represent the platform in cross‑organization technical forums.
• Break down ambiguous, multi‑quarter plans into concrete deliverables and lead the team through execution.
• Guide critical incident response and root‑cause analysis for mesh‑level outages, ensuring long‑term fixes land.
• Ensure capacity planning, performance tuning, SLO definition, and proactive monitoring of mesh health.
• Mentor junior and senior engineers on technical depth, system design, and platform thinking.
• Conduct technical reviews, contribute to hiring, and help grow the team's overall capability.
• Promote AI‑assisted engineering tools and identify opportunities for AI in operational workflows, leading implementation of high‑value applications.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 6+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 3 years working on distributed systems, networking, or platform infrastructure.
• Deep, hands‑on expertise with service mesh technologies (Istio, Envoy, Linkerd, Consul, or equivalent) at scale in production.
• Experience with microservices networking: HTTP, TCP/IP, gRPC, TLS/mTLS, load balancing, and service discovery.
• Track record leading delivery of complex platform projects across multiple teams or quarters.
• Proficiency in Go (preferred), Java, or Python, and experience contributing to or extending mesh‑related open‑source projects.
• Expertise with Kubernetes, container orchestration, and cloud‑native infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Experience with DevOps practices, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, and modern observability stacks.
• Experience promoting AI tool adoption in an engineering team.

EEO Statement

We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that provides equal opportunity for Grabbers to grow and perform at their best. We consider all candidates fairly and equally regardless of nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, age, gender, family commitments, physical and mental impairments or disabilities, and other attributes that make them unique.