Talent Network: Tech Lead

Toptal•Orlando, FL

3d•Remote

About The Position

We are looking for a Back-end Architect and Tech Lead to help drive the launch of a new, high-impact business line at Toptal. In this pivotal role, you’ll own the technical vision and turn napkin sketches into a resilient, scalable platform. This is a greenfield opportunity where you’ll shape architecture, guide early technical decisions, and work to bring an ambitious product to life - all while directly contributing to Toptal’s growth and innovation roadmap. The decisions you make in the first 12 months will define the platform’s DNA, its velocity, and its capacity to serve thousands of customers. If you’re excited to architect from a blank slate, move fast, and build a category-defining product, we’d love to meet you. This is a remote position. We do not offer visa sponsorship or assistance. Resumes and communication must be submitted in English.

Requirements

10+ years designing and shipping distributed systems at scale
Outstanding written and verbal communication skills. Great executive presence, and ability to partner and support with executives.
Fluency with a major cloud (e.g., GCP or AWS) plus a modern tech stack (Ruby/Rails, Python, Rust, Golang, Java etc.)
Deep track record architecting large-scale, multi-tenant applications and platforms
Experience hiring, mentoring, and growing a small team of back-end, full-stack, and front-end engineers.
Hands-on experience building zero-to-one products and navigating rapid iteration under ambiguity.
Comfort pitching architecture to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders—and rolling up sleeves to write production code.
A collaborative, founder-level mindset: bias to action, ownership over outcomes, and passion for elegant, pragmatic solutions.
You must be a world-class individual contributor to thrive at Toptal. You will not be here just to tell other people what to do

Responsibilities

Set the end-to-end architecture: data storage, task orchestration, model-in-the-loop pipelines, multi-tenant, and observability.
Drive every “build vs. buy” decision and seed the initial tech stack (cloud, languages, frameworks, infra-as-code).
Prototype core services quickly
Participate in the recruiting process, mentor, and unblock a small team of back-end, full-stack, and front-end engineers as the company scales.
Partner with the Product Lead to translate fuzzy customer needs into clear, actionable technical requirements.
Establish engineering culture, coding standards, and CI/CD from day one.
Represent the technology narrative with stakeholders, design partners, and early enterprise customers.
Join our team, where you will be introduced to Toptal’s practices and processes.
Start participating in company-wide training sessions.
Get familiar with our product vision
Set up your local environment and get familiar with our tech stack.
Understand what has been built so far
Identify bottlenecks and areas for improvement
Contribute to architectural design and decision-making
Lead technical initiatives in our team
Work on long-term roadmap and scalability
Suggest and implement improvements to Toptal’s processes and codebase, while exercising discretion and independent judgment.
Stay up to date with technology advancements and ensure our technology stack is optimized for strategic growth and the competitive advantage of Toptal.
Balance the technical roadmap to account for both existing technical debt and long-term strategy for sustainable growth.
Mentor Toptal’s new team members.
Work on scaling the data-labeling engine
Build a roadmap to achieve compliance