Lead Engineer / Tech Lead, Applications

Axe Recruiting; United States; Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Axe Recruiting partners with a client building an AI-native email application and is looking for a hands-on engineering leader in the United States, United Kingdom, or Asia. The role oversees the engineering layer between AI models and users across backend, mobile and desktop, guiding a small team of senior engineers.

Hybrid in US/UK/Seoul, with remote options in Singapore/Indonesia/China; full-time employment.

Qualifications

• Substantial experience leading product or application engineering on complex systems.
• A strong hands‑on record of building backend systems and shipping them to production.
• Experience with AI‑powered products, or with systems integrated with modern ML and LLM capabilities.
• Sound technical judgment, including when information is incomplete.
• Range across backend and client platforms, with real depth in at least one.
• A strong pull toward ownership, shipping and learning from real usage.
• A high bar for engineering fundamentals, reliability and code quality.

Responsibilities

• Set application engineering strategy for backend, mobile and desktop, and deliver on it.
• Design AI workflow systems that hold up: state, orchestration, tool use, retries, fallbacks and failure handling.
• Create the APIs and abstractions through which AI systems reach the product.
• Lead a small group of senior engineers, lifting the standard through code review, design review and hands‑on mentoring.
• Decide the big trade‑offs among cost, latency, security, reliability and user experience.
• Lay the production groundwork: testing, monitoring, observability and operational discipline.
• Work with ML leadership to turn what the models can do into product experiences robust enough to ship.
• Keep the pace high without letting the architecture grow complicated, hard to maintain or unable to scale.

Skills

Leadership

Backend systems

AI-powered products

Technical judgment

Cross-platform

Ownership & shipping

Code-driven leadership

Job description

Hands-on technical leadership of the application layer for an AI-native email product, across backend, mobile and desktop.

The Opportunity

Our client needs the engineer who makes AI capability dependable enough to be a product. A well-funded AI applications company, backed by an established technology company in Southeast Asia and building for a global market, they are building an AI-native email application and the systems around it. This lead owns the engineering layer between the models and the user: architecture across backend services, APIs and client applications, plus a small team of senior engineers. It is a leadership role that stays in the code. The client is open on level, from staff through principal, for the right person.

Role Snapshot

• Location: United States, United Kingdom or Asia (Singapore, South Korea, Indonesia, China)
• Work Model: Hybrid in the US, UK and Seoul for most openings; remote in Singapore, Indonesia and China
• Employment Type: Full-time
• Compensation: Competitive, shared on intro call
• Team: Engineering, applications

What You’ll Own

• Set application engineering strategy for backend, mobile and desktop, and deliver on it.
• Design AI workflow systems that hold up: state, orchestration, tool use, retries, fallbacks and failure handling.
• Create the APIs and abstractions through which AI systems reach the product.
• Lead a small group of senior engineers, lifting the standard through code review, design review and hands‑on mentoring.
• Decide the big trade‑offs among cost, latency, security, reliability and user experience.
• Lay the production groundwork: testing, monitoring, observability and operational discipline.
• Work with ML leadership to turn what the models can do into product experiences robust enough to ship.
• Keep the pace high without letting the architecture grow complicated, hard to maintain or unable to scale.

What You Bring

• Substantial experience leading product or application engineering on complex systems.
• A strong hands‑on record of building backend systems and shipping them to production.
• Experience with AI‑powered products, or with systems integrated with modern ML and LLM capabilities.
• Sound technical judgment, including when information is incomplete.
• Range across backend and client platforms, with real depth in at least one.
• A strong pull toward ownership, shipping and learning from real usage.
• A high bar for engineering fundamentals, reliability and code quality.

Why This Role

• Architecture authority across the whole application surface, not one service or one platform.
• A small, senior team with broad ownership, where engineers are expected to use their judgment and execute independently.
• Success defined in engineering terms: systems that are observable and stable under real load, and latency and reliability that visibly improve.
• A direct working relationship with ML leadership, and a short hiring process of three to four interviews.

Not the Right Fit If

• You have stepped away from the code. This is a hands‑on leadership role with critical architectural decisions in your hands.
• You want to manage a large organization; the team is deliberately small and senior.
• You have not built AI‑powered products. That experience is a stated requirement.