Staff / Principal Backend Engineer

Techy Recruiter

8d•Remote

About The Position

Ajaib is an Indonesian investment platform helping people access and manage investments across stocks, mutual funds, crypto, and other digital investment products. Trusted by more than three million customers, Ajaib is focused on making investing more accessible, affordable, and intuitive. As the platform continues to grow, building reliable, scalable, and secure technology is fundamental to serving customers and supporting the business. We’re looking for a Staff or Principal Backend Engineer to shape the architecture and technical direction of the backend systems powering Ajaib’s investment, crypto, money, platform, and shared-services products. The role You’ll be one of Ajaib’s most senior individual contributors, leading through technical expertise, architectural judgement, and influence rather than people management. You’ll work closely with Engineering Managers, Product Managers, senior engineers, and engineering leadership to solve complex technical problems and build reliable backend systems that support millions of customers. At Staff level, you’ll own architecture across multiple squads, lead cross-team initiatives, improve engineering standards, and mentor Senior Engineers. At Principal level, you’ll define long-term technical direction across a major engineering domain, lead company-wide technical initiatives, and act as a trusted technical adviser to engineering and product leadership. This is a hands-on technical-leadership role where you’ll work through ambiguity, influence decisions without formal authority, and balance short-term delivery with long-term technical sustainability.

Requirements

Strong professional software-engineering experience, including ownership of complex production systems
Expert-level backend development experience using Java, Golang, or both
Deep knowledge of distributed systems, microservices, event-driven architecture, API design, and domain-driven design
Experience designing and operating reliable systems at significant scale
Strong experience with Kafka or similar event-streaming technologies
Experience with Redis and relational databases such as MySQL or PostgreSQL
Experience with Cassandra or similar NoSQL databases
Strong understanding of Kubernetes, Docker, and containerised infrastructure
Experience working with cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft Azure
Experience with CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, and modern software-delivery practices
Strong understanding of reliability engineering, observability, security, performance optimisation, and operational resilience
A proven track record of leading complex technical initiatives involving multiple teams
The ability to influence technical direction without relying on reporting lines or formal authority
Strong systems thinking and the ability to look beyond individual features or services
Excellent architectural judgement and pragmatic decision-making
The ability to simplify complex technical problems and communicate decisions clearly
High ownership, accountability, and comfort working through ambiguity
Strong written and spoken English
Staff-level experience: Typically eight to ten or more years of professional software-engineering experience
Demonstrated ownership of multiple production systems or technical platforms
Experience leading architecture and delivery across several engineering squads
A strong record of influencing technical decisions beyond a single team
Experience improving engineering standards, internal tooling, and developer experience
Experience mentoring Senior Engineers and developing future technical leaders
Principal-level experience: Typically twelve or more years of professional software-engineering experience
Demonstrated ownership of technical strategy across an engineering domain or organisation
A track record of leading organisation-wide modernisation or engineering-transformation initiatives
Experience acting as a senior technical authority for architecture, standards, and strategic engineering decisions
The ability to influence Engineering Directors, Heads of Engineering, Engineering Managers, and other senior individual contributors

Nice To Haves

Previous experience within fintech, banking, brokerage, payments, investment, wealth management, trading, or cryptocurrency platforms
Experience designing high-availability platforms supporting millions of customers or high transaction volumes
Experience building low-latency, resilient, event-driven systems
Experience modernising legacy systems or leading large-scale platform and cloud migrations
Experience improving developer productivity through internal platforms, automation, tooling, or developer-experience initiatives
Experience working with globally distributed engineering teams
Experience working within regulated financial or technology environments
Experience partnering closely with infrastructure, security, data, risk, and product teams
Contributions to open-source projects, technical publications, engineering blogs, conference talks, patents, or technical communities

Responsibilities

Lead the design and evolution of mission-critical backend systems
Own architecture across multiple products, services, and engineering squads
Design scalable distributed systems capable of supporting millions of customers and high transaction volumes
Drive architecture decisions across product, platform, infrastructure, security, and data teams
Lead architecture and system-design reviews for high-impact initiatives
Balance immediate delivery needs with long-term scalability, reliability, and maintainability
Identify systemic engineering challenges before they become organisational bottlenecks
Improve system reliability, performance, security, observability, and operational resilience
Lead the modernisation of backend platforms, legacy systems, developer tooling, and engineering workflows
Establish strong engineering patterns across microservices, event-driven architecture, API design, and domain-driven design
Coordinate complex technical initiatives across multiple teams
Align technical decisions with customer needs and wider business priorities
Resolve architectural disagreements through data, collaboration, and technical expertise
Strengthen CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code, cloud infrastructure, and automation
Raise the engineering bar through code reviews, design reviews, technical documentation, and mentoring
Write and lead technical proposals, architecture documents, RFCs, and engineering standards
Mentor Senior Engineers and help them develop towards Staff-level responsibilities
Share technical knowledge through workshops, engineering talks, documentation, and internal communities
Partner with Engineering Directors, Heads of Engineering, and Product Leadership on strategic technology investments