Remote Lead Backend Engineer: Scalable Systems & Mentorship

Placements24; Pietermaritzburg; Hybrid; ZAR 900,000 - 1,500,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Fully remote work arrangement

Health, dental, and vision insurance

Professional development budget

Stock options or equity

Retirement plan with company match

Home office setup allowance

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Lead Backend Software Engineer to join a fully remote engineering team. You will design, develop, and deploy scalable backend services, lead architecture decisions, and mentor junior engineers to drive best practices in a distributed system environment.

The role emphasizes ownership, high-performance systems, and collaboration with product managers across a remote-first organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering or related field or equivalent practical experience.
• Minimum 7 years of professional backend development experience, with at least 2 years in a lead/senior role.
• Proven experience designing and building microservices architectures.
• Proficiency in Python, Java, Go, Node.js, or C#.
• Strong knowledge of RESTful API design and relational/noSQL databases.
• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP) and containerization (Docker/Kubernetes).
• Git proficiency and excellent problem-solving, analytical and communication skills.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable backend services and APIs.
• Lead technical design and architecture of features and components.
• Mentor junior backend engineers and provide technical leadership.
• Collaborate with frontend, product managers, and stakeholders to implement features.
• Write clean, well-documented code following best practices.
• Manage database solutions ensuring data integrity and performance.
• Optimize for speed, scalability, and security.
• Troubleshoot production issues and perform code reviews.
• Stay updated with emerging backend technologies.
• Contribute to improvements in development processes and standards.

Skills

Leadership

Backend development

Problem-solving

Remote collaboration

Mentorship

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS or related field

Master's degree (advantage)

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS

Git

PostgreSQL/MySQL

MongoDB/Cassandra

Job description

Placements24 is seeking a Lead Backend Software Engineer to join a fully remote engineering team. You will design, develop, and deploy scalable backend services, lead architecture decisions, and mentor junior engineers to drive best practices in a distributed system environment.

The role emphasizes ownership, high-performance systems, and collaboration with product managers across a remote-first organization.