Lead Backend Engineer (Trading systems, 70L)

This role is for one of our partner companies, Fintech $4.5M seed raised.

About:

We’re looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to help architect and build the backend systems from the ground up. This is not a maintenance role. You’ll work directly with the VP Engineering and founders to design the architecture that powers the product today and eventually supports a full-execution trading platform. The role is approximately 70% hands-on engineering and 30% technical leadership. You’ll be expected to build alongside the team while providing technical direction, reviewing architecture decisions, mentoring engineers, and gradually taking greater ownership of the backend function as the team grows.

What you'll own

• Architect backend systems from scratch for an AI-native trading platform.
• Design scalable microservices, service boundaries, and communication patterns.
• Own database architecture, schemas, data models, and performance decisions.
• Build APIs and integrations across web applications, mobile applications, market-data providers, and other external systems.
• Build systems capable of handling high-throughput, real-time, and transaction-critical workloads.
• Own backend systems end to end — from architecture and implementation through deployment, monitoring, and production reliability.
• Make key technical decisions as the backend stack evolves.
• Lead and mentor backend engineers while remaining deeply hands-on.
• Work directly with the VP Engineering and founders on technical and product priorities.
• Move across multiple backend workstreams as priorities evolve in a fast-moving startup environment.

What we're looking for

• 5+ years of backend engineering experience, with strong hands-on system design capability.
• Prior experience leading or technically owning a small engineering team.
• Strong understanding of microservices architecture and distributed systems.
• Strong fundamentals in database design and data modelling.
• Experience designing and building production-grade APIs and third-party integrations.
• Experience building backend systems from the ground up rather than only maintaining mature infrastructure.
• Strong product engineering mindset with genuine end-to-end ownership.
• Experience working in an early-stage or fast-moving product startup.
• Ability to operate with ambiguity, changing priorities, and limited process.
• Comfortable remaining highly hands-on despite taking on technical leadership responsibilities.
• Experience building backend systems for trading, broking, wealth-tech, or fintech products.
• Experience with real-time market data, order-management systems, trading infrastructure, or execution systems.
• Experience building high-concurrency or event-driven systems using technologies such as Kafka, RabbitMQ, NATS, or similar.
• Strong Golang experience. Golang is preferred, but strong backend fundamentals matter more than language-specific experience.
• Experience architecting systems during the zero-to-one stage of a startup.