Staff Software Engineer - Tech Lead

Cerby

About The Position

This role is responsible for technical direction, delivery excellence, and raising engineering standards within a product squad. You will partner closely with Product, Design, and Engineering leadership to deliver high-impact initiatives while building a strong, healthy engineering culture.

Requirements

Backend programming languages: Python, Go, or equivalent.
Experience with designing, developing, and maintaining scalable SaaS applications in a high-performance startup environment (prior experience in high-growth venture-funded SaaS startups preferred)
Deep understanding of authentication and authorization protocols: OIDC (OpenID Connect), SAML, and SCIM
Strong knowledge of identity and access management (IAM) concepts, including RBAC and ABAC
Expertise in API security best practices and secure coding principles
Solid understanding of web security vulnerabilities and mitigation strategies (CORS, XSS, CSRF, etc.)
Knowledge of token-based authentication systems, including JWT implementation and security considerations
Experience with session management and secure authentication flows
Cloud platforms (ideally AWS) and prior experience building scalable cloud-based systems.
Queuing, Messaging and Streaming platforms such as SQS.
Distributed data stores (S3), plus relational databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL), and key/value databases (Redis, DynamoDB, or similar).
Software engineering practices such as Iterative Development, CI/CD, Collective Code Ownership, and Refactoring.
Architecting and designing modular and decoupled software applications and systems.
Designing distributed, fault-tolerant, high-availability, and resilient systems.
Proven ability to instrument distributed systems with well-designed telemetry and observability code (prior experience with Open Telemetry and Datadog a plus).
6+ years of software engineering experience
Experience leading technical initiatives end-to-end
Strong system design and architectural thinking
Experience working in product-led companies
Ability to balance short-term delivery with long-term scalability
Strong communication skills (technical and non-technical audiences)
Experience in high-growth or scaling environments (Series A/B/C preferred)

Nice To Haves

Prior cybersecurity experience is a plus.
Experience scaling systems for growth
Experience mentoring engineers
Experience working with distributed teams

Responsibilities

Own the technical direction of your squad’s roadmap
Design scalable, reliable, and maintainable system architectures
Make key technical decisions balancing speed and long-term sustainability
Lead technical discovery and solution design for complex initiatives
Drive refactoring and tech debt prioritization as part of our ongoing operations
Champion the adoption of AI-augmented development practices, leveraging emerging tools to automate rote processes and provide data-driven insights that enhance team skill sets and maximize delivery velocity
Translate and collaborate on the product requirements to have clear technical plans
Collaborate in break down large initiatives into actionable deliverables within the sprint
Scope complex tasks and coordinate team efforts, proactively identifying and removing blockers to maintain delivery velocity
Identify and evaluate risks early and proactively mitigate, and document them
Ensure predictable delivery and alignment with OKRs
Improve development workflows and engineering velocity
Act as a technical mentor and coach to engineers
Lead code reviews, promote best practices, and use AI tools to improve them
Foster a culture of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement
Collaborate closely with the Engineering Manager on team health, processes, and performance
Partner with Product Managers to shape technical feasibility
Align with other Tech Leads to maintain architectural consistency
Communicate trade-offs clearly to non-technical stakeholders