Overview
Role Summary
We are looking for a Senior Backend / Platform Engineer to act as a stabilization anchor for our middleware platform. This role is not feature-centric. It is focused on production stability, non-functional requirements (NFRs), and ownership transition from an external vendor to an internal engineering team. The role requires hands-on production experience, calm incident handling, and deep understanding of distributed systems in fintech / trading-grade environments.
Key Responsibilities
1. Platform Stabilization & Production Ownership
• Act as L3/L4 technical escalation point for middleware services
• Diagnose and resolve performance, availability, and reliability issues
• Lead root cause analysis (RCA) and preventive fixes for incidents
• Reduce firefighting by improving systemic stability
2. Non-Functional Requirements (NFR) Ownership
• Own and enforce performance, scalability, HA, fault tolerance standards
• Identify gaps in existing services related to: o Latency o Throughput o Resource utilization o Failure handling
• Work closely with DevOps to align infra and application behavior
3. Distributed Systems & Data Layer Expertise
• Design and improve backend services built on: o Golang o PostgreSQL o Kafka o Redis • Ensure correct handling of: o Backpressure o Idempotency o Retry mechanisms o Message ordering & replay
• Review and optimize database access patterns and query performance
4. Observability & Release Hygiene
• Improve logging, metrics, and tracing across services
• Define actionable dashboards and alerts (Prometheus / Grafana / OpenSearch) • Support structured release processes, versioning, and rollback strategies
• Ensure environment parity across dev, staging, and production
5. Vendor Transition & Code Ownership
• Lead knowledge transfer (KT) acceptance from external vendors
• Take ownership of existing codebases without disruptive rewrites
• Identify high-risk areas and stabilize incrementally
• Set coding and operational standards for long-term maintainability
6. Team Enablement (Not Line Management)
• Mentor mid-level and junior engineers on: o Production debugging o Distributed systems thinking o Code quality under load
• Act as a technical anchor, not a people manager (initially)
Required Skills & Experience
Must-Have
• 8–14 years of backend engineering experience
• Strong hands-on expertise in distributed systems
• Proven experience handling production incidents in live systems
• Deep understanding of: o Golang (concurrency, context, runtime behavior) o SQL databases (PostgreSQL / SQL Server or similar) at scale o Kafka in production (consumer groups, rebalancing, offsets)
• Experience with high-availability, low-latency systems (fintech/trading preferred)
Good to Have
• Kubernetes & containerized environments
• Redis performance optimization
• WebSockets / streaming APIs
• Experience working in regulated or exchange-integrated environments
• Prior exposure to vendor-built systems or platform migrations