Lead Software Engineer - Backend

Faros; San Mateo (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Faros is seeking software engineers to build the future of engineering operations. This is a hands-on role that blends architectural vision with coding core systems and scalable services.

You will own critical components, mentor engineers, and collaborate with distributed teams to deliver robust, production-ready pipelines and services.

Ideal candidates have 5–8+ years of experience, strong TypeScript/Node.js or Python, REST/GraphQL, and cloud experience.

Qualifications

• 5–8+ years with ownership of critical components or services.
• Proficient in TypeScript/Node.js or Python.
• Experience with REST/GraphQL APIs.
• Experience with building & productionizing web services, data pipelines, ETL/ELT, orchestration frameworks.
• Strong database fundamentals (SQL/NoSQL).
• CI/CD familiar with GitHub Actions, CircleCI, etc.
• Experience running production workloads including monitoring, alerting, logging, metrics, traces, oncall.
• Security fundamentals.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and scale our highly scalable data infrastructure and core engineering platforms, owning the hardest technical problems from design to production deployment.
• Lead from the front by writing high-quality, resilient code, establishing architectural standards, and building best practices for backend services/APIs to ensure system-wide reliability.
• Act as a technical partner to product and engineering leadership, translating business strategy into technical roadmaps and mentoring other engineers.

Skills

TypeScript

Node.js

Python

Education

B.S. in Computer Science

Tools

GitHub Actions

CircleCI

Job description

Mission

At Faros AI, we are reshaping the way engineering organizations operate, with an engineering intelligence platform that provides visibility and context across the organization’s software delivery systems. This deep operational context supports engineering leaders today, and is increasingly essential as AI agents begin to operate within real software delivery environments. Faros AI is laying the foundation for how humans and AI will build software together in the years ahead.

About the Role

We’re looking for software engineers who want to build the future of engineering operations with us. This is a hands‑on role. While you will drive architectural vision and mentor senior engineers, you will spend a significant portion of your time writing code, building core systems, and solving our most complex technical challenges.

Responsibilities

• Architect, build, and scale our highly scalable data infrastructure and core engineering platforms, owning the hardest technical problems from whiteboard design all the way through to production deployment.

• Lead from the front by writing high‑quality, resilient code, establishing architectural standards, and building best practices for backend services/APIs to ensure system‑wide reliability, security, and scalability.

• Act as a technical partner to product and engineering leadership, translating business strategy into technical roadmaps and mentoring other engineers.

Baseline Requirements

Experience

• 5–8+ years with ownership of critical components or services

Technical Stack

• Expert‑level proficiency in TypeScript + Node.js and/or Python

• Experience designing/consuming/implementing REST/GraphQL APIs

• Experience with building & productionizing web services, data pipelines, ETL/ELT, orchestration frameworks

• Strong database fundamentals (SQL/NoSQL)

• CI/CD familiarity (GitHub Actions, CircleCI, etc.)

• Experience running production workloads including monitoring, alerting, logging, metrics, traces, oncall

• Security fundamentals

Cloud

• Hands‑on experience with one of more major cloud providers: AWS, Azure, GCP (certifications are a plus)

Collaboration & Communication

• Comfortable working with distributed international teams

• Strong ability to communicate complex technical trade‑offs to non‑technical stakeholders

English

• English C1: able to participate in technical calls and write clear communication.

Education

• Degree in Computer Science / Software Engineering, or equivalent real‑world experience.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience with building & integrating with SaaS platforms

• Experience with engineering analytics or developer‑productivity tooling

• Experience with IaC, containers, serverless, queues/event‑driven architectures

• Experience with security practices (authN/authZ, secrets management)

• Familiarity with engineering metrics (DORA, code quality, delivery metrics)

• Hands‑on experience using coding agents (AI‑assisted development)