Staff Engineer / BE Team Leader (Core payroll engine development)

Job Summary:

The Back-End Development Team Lead plays a pivotal role in leading and managing an offshore backend development team, delivering high-quality software solutions, and ensuring adherence to engineering excellence. This role is essential to designing and implementing components for Mercans’ global payroll software, HR Blizz, and other solutions. The Team Lead is responsible for maintaining engineering standards, optimizing performance, mentoring team members, and building scalable, robust, and secure systems that meet business requirements.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Team Management and Leadership :

• Manage and lead a team of offshore backend developers to ensure successful project delivery.

• Conduct technical interviews for new roles within the team.

• Mentor junior team members and promote technical knowledge sharing.

• Contribute toward achieving team and organizational goals.

• Development and Implementation :

• Design and implement robust, scalable, and highly available backend systems using a modern technology stack.

• Write clean, maintainable, and secure code for web services, applications, and cloud infrastructure.

• Oversee the end-to-end lifecycle of HR Blizz system integrations with client applications.

• Validate code quality with automated unit, integration, and end-to-end testing.

• Engineering Standards and Best Practices :

• Establish engineering, architecture, coding, and other standards to support the software development process.

• Ensure engineering best practices are followed for all solutions.

• Identify and optimize performance issues in software and infrastructure.

• Automate processes to improve efficiency and reliability.

• Collaboration and Stakeholder Engagement :

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams on design, best practices, and code reviews.

• Work closely with project teams to meet business requirements and propose feasible solutions.

• Documentation and Reporting :

• Create and maintain professional technical documentation for internal and external use.

• Prepare clear, thorough, and accurate documentation of technical processes and systems.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.
• Proven track record of leading a team of 4-5 or more engineers for 2+ years.
• 5+ years of relevant work experience in backend development.
• 3+ years of experience designing microservice solutions.
• At least 4 years of experience with technologies such as Kotlin, Java/Spring, and relational/non-relational databases (MySQL, MongoDB).
• Proficiency in building APIs and working with private/public cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Experience with Docker, containerization, and CI/CD tools.
• Strong understanding of SQL, event-driven architecture, and experience with queues (e.g., RabbitMQ).
• Hands-on experience with test-driven development processes.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and documentation skills.
• Fluent in English, both written and spoken.
• Strong understanding and practical experience with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, technologies, or applications relevant to the role.
• Ability to leverage AI-driven solutions to improve efficiency, decision-making, and innovation in daily work.

Nice to Have:

• Proficiency with Kubernetes.
• Experience automating HR or Finance domain processes.
• Familiarity with monitoring and alerting tools.