Senior Software Engineer – Team Lead

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer – Team Lead who combines strong hands-on engineering skills with technical leadership and a high degree of ownership.

In this role, you will lead engineering execution, contribute directly to product development, make architectural decisions, and help establish the engineering practices required to scale our platform. You will work closely with the founding team, translate business requirements into technical solutions, and guide other engineers in delivering reliable, high-quality software.

This is a hands-on leadership role suited to someone who enjoys building products from the ground up, solving complex technical problems, mentoring developers, and taking responsibility for outcomes in a fast-moving startup environment.

Key Responsibilities

1. Software Development & Product Engineering

• Design, develop, and maintain scalable, secure, and high-performance web applications.

• Lead hands-on development across frontend interfaces, backend services, APIs, databases, and third-party integrations.

• Build and improve core platform features, including race discovery, event listings, search, organizer dashboards, and registration workflows.

• Write clean, maintainable, reusable, and well-tested code.

• Troubleshoot complex technical issues and improve application performance, reliability, and responsiveness.

• Take ownership of features from requirement analysis and implementation through testing, deployment, and post-release improvements.

2. Technical Leadership & Architecture

• Own technical design decisions and contribute to the overall architecture and evolution of the platform.

• Evaluate technologies, frameworks, libraries, and infrastructure based on business needs and long-term maintainability.

• Design robust APIs, database schemas, integrations, and application workflows.

• Identify and address technical debt, security risks, scalability challenges, and performance bottlenecks.

• Establish coding standards, engineering guidelines, and best practices.

• Balance rapid product delivery with code quality, reliability, and long-term technical sustainability.

3. Team Leadership & Mentoring

• Guide and mentor engineers, helping them improve their technical skills and engineering practices.

• Conduct code reviews and ensure adherence to agreed standards for code quality, testing, security, and maintainability.

• Break down complex requirements into actionable engineering tasks and establish realistic delivery plans.

• Coordinate development priorities, manage dependencies, and communicate progress and risks.

• Encourage collaboration, knowledge sharing, and a culture of accountability.

• Help build an effective engineering team and improve development processes as the company grows.

4. Testing, Deployment & Reliability

• Establish appropriate unit, integration, and end-to-end testing practices.

• Improve CI/CD pipelines, deployment workflows, and release management.

• Monitor application health, investigate production incidents, and drive root-cause analysis.

• Implement appropriate logging, monitoring, error tracking, and performance measurement.

• Follow secure coding practices and ensure appropriate authentication, authorization, and data protection.

• Maintain technical documentation and ensure systems can be understood and maintained by the wider team.

5. Product Collaboration & Business Impact

• Work directly with the founders and product stakeholders to understand business goals and user requirements.

• Translate product ideas into practical technical plans, estimates, and implementation strategies.

• Collaborate with product and design stakeholders to improve usability and simplify user workflows.

• Identify opportunities to improve platform performance, conversion journeys, and operational efficiency.

• Take initiative in identifying problems and proposing solutions rather than waiting for detailed instructions.

• Ensure engineering decisions support the company's immediate priorities while preparing the platform for future growth.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• 6–8+ years of professional software engineering experience, including substantial hands-on development of production applications.

• Experience leading technical projects, mentoring engineers, or coordinating software development teams.

• Strong proficiency in JavaScript/TypeScript and modern web development.

• Hands-on experience with frontend frameworks such as React or Next.js.

• Strong backend development experience with Node.js or an equivalent backend technology.

• Solid understanding of REST APIs, database design, authentication, authorization, and third-party integrations.

• Experience with relational databases such as PostgreSQL or MySQL.

• Experience with Git, code reviews, automated testing, CI/CD, and deployment workflows.

• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure, application monitoring, logging, and production troubleshooting.

• Strong understanding of software architecture, design principles, data structures, and system design.

• Ability to make sound technical decisions and communicate trade-offs clearly.

• Excellent problem-solving, communication, planning, and collaboration skills.

Good to Have

• Experience as a technical lead, senior engineer, or early engineering hire at a startup.

• Experience building a product from scratch and taking it from MVP to production.

• Experience with AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, or similar cloud platforms.

• Familiarity with Docker, containerization, and infrastructure automation.

• Experience integrating payment gateways, messaging systems, analytics platforms, or external APIs.

• Experience with marketplaces, SaaS platforms, booking systems, or consumer-facing products.

• Familiarity with mobile application development and mobile-first architecture.

• Experience with application security, performance optimization, and scalable system design.

• Interest in endurance sports, fitness, event technology, or community-driven platforms.

What We Expect From You

Ownership: You take responsibility for technical decisions, engineering quality, delivery, and the performance of the systems you build.

Hands-on Leadership: You can guide a team while remaining actively involved in architecture, coding, debugging, and technical problem-solving.

Builder's Mindset: You enjoy creating products from scratch, working through ambiguity, and finding practical solutions with limited resources.

Execution: You can prioritize effectively, make informed trade-offs, and deliver high-quality work without constant supervision.

Accountability: You communicate progress, raise risks early, and take responsibility for resolving blockers.

Mentorship: You help other engineers grow through constructive feedback, code reviews, and knowledge sharing.

Product Thinking: You understand the business context behind engineering decisions and focus on building features that solve real user problems.

Adaptability: You are comfortable with evolving requirements, lean processes, and the pace of an early-stage startup.