Technical Lead, AI-Driven Applications (Remote)

Protingent; Washington; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Protingent is seeking a Technical Lead, Applications to own the core architecture connecting AI systems to real-world experiences. This hands-on leadership role oversees backend, mobile, and desktop integration, driving reliability, performance, and scalable design.

You will mentor a senior team, guide API and microservice development, ensure production readiness with observability and cost controls, and partner with ML leadership to translate model capabilities into shipped features.

Qualifications

• 12+ years of software engineering experience with 5+ years in engineering leadership.
• Hands-on background reviewing architecture, code, and system design.
• Deep understanding of cloud-based systems, APIs, microservices, data pipelines, and modern infra.
• Proven track record building and scaling internal tools or platforms for cross-functional teams.
• Experience making build-vs-buy decisions and managing multi-tool portfolios.
• Strong product thinking: success tied to user outcomes and business impact.
• Experience navigating full SDLC from ideation to deprecation.
• Excellent communication translating tech to executives and roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Own the application engineering strategy across backend, mobile, and desktop.
• Lead and grow a senior applications team.
• Ensure production reliability: observability, monitoring, retries, fallbacks, and failure handling.
• Set architectural direction for AI-powered workflows, APIs, and integrations.
• Integrate AI capabilities with clear abstractions and predictable behavior.
• Collaborate with ML leadership to translate model capabilities into features.
• Make high-impact decisions on latency, cost, reliability, and UX.
• Establish a strong execution culture with code/design reviews.

Skills

Leadership

Cloud architecture

API design

Microservices

Backend systems

Communication

SDLC

Product thinking

AI integration understanding

Team building

Tools

AWS

GCP

Azure

Kubernetes

Docker

Job description

Protingent is seeking a Technical Lead, Applications to own the core architecture connecting AI systems to real-world experiences. This hands-on leadership role oversees backend, mobile, and desktop integration, driving reliability, performance, and scalable design.

You will mentor a senior team, guide API and microservice development, ensure production readiness with observability and cost controls, and partner with ML leadership to translate model capabilities into shipped features.