Tech Lead Engineer – AI Platform & Architecture (Onsite)

Vertical Institute Pte Ltd; Singapore; On-site; SGD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Vertical Institute is seeking a Senior Lead Engineer to own the tech direction of a lean, high-output team building the systems powering our learning platform and internal operations. This hands-on role demands strong architectural judgment, coding activity, and a culture of excellence in design and reviews.

You will partner with the CEO and cross-functional teams across admissions, sales, finance, and operations to translate business priorities into a clear technical roadmap and then drive the

Qualifications

• Proven experience operating at a Lead or Principal level.
• Strong full-stack or backend background building production-grade web systems.
• Solid foundation in architecture, database design, API design, and performance optimization.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers and ship reliable software iteratively without over-engineering.
• Excellent ability to explain technical trade-offs to business stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Architecture & Direction: Set technical standards, choose scalable architectures, and maintain system security and reliability.
• Roadmap & Trade-offs: Partner with the CEO to turn business goals into an actionable engineering roadmap while managing technical debt.
• Engineering Quality: Raise the team’s standard through thoughtful design and code reviews.
• Core Systems: Stay actively coding to build and maintain the core learning platform.
• Operations & Tooling: Build internal automations and tools to streamline sales, admissions, finance, and support.
• SaaS Integrations: Connect LMS, CRM, payment systems, and third‑party tools for long‑term maintainability.
• Practical AI Integration: Proactively identify and build AI features, agents, and workflows to improve efficiency and decision‑making across the business.
• Mentorship: Coach engineers, enforce best practices (testing, docs, CI/CD), and foster an ownership-driven culture.
• Bridge Technical & Business: Translate complex tech concepts clearly for the CEO and non-technical teams, building cross-functional trust.

Skills

Lead/Principal level

Full-stack/backend

System design

Leadership

Clear communication

Tools

Ruby on Rails

Job description

Vertical Institute is seeking a Senior Lead Engineer to own the tech direction of a lean, high-output team building the systems powering our learning platform and internal operations. This hands-on role demands strong architectural judgment, coding activity, and a culture of excellence in design and reviews.

You will partner with the CEO and cross-functional teams across admissions, sales, finance, and operations to translate business priorities into a clear technical roadmap and then drive the