Tech Lead Backend Engineering .NET

About InnovationCast

InnovationCast is a fast-growing startup with an award-winning SaaS platform that helps organizations discover, incubate, and scale new ideas. We connect people with ideas so teams can turn their best concepts into something real and change how their companies innovate.

We work with global leaders like DHL, Mayo Clinic, and Delta. We're backed by Indico Capital and Shilling Capital, and we were accelerated by Google for Startups.

Our Mission

We want to change how organizations innovate. We think innovation and entrepreneurship will become part of everyday work, and we're building the tools to make that practical for companies of any size.

The Role: Tech Lead, Backend Engineering (.NET)

As Tech Lead for Backend Engineering at InnovationCast, you'll be responsible for the technical quality, reliability, and evolution of the backend systems behind our SaaS platform.

This is a hands-on engineering role, not a purely managerial one. You'll keep designing, writing, reviewing, and improving production code while helping set technical direction for the backend team. 

You'll work with software developers to keep raising the bar on how the team builds and ships. Formal people management (1:1s, performance reviews) is out of scope for this positionsits with a dedicated Engineering Manager, so you can focus on the technical side.

A big part of your job is reviewing Pull Requests and deciding whether changes are correct, safe, maintainable, testable, and ready to merge

. You'll have the authority and the responsibility to approve or block merges based on functionality, technical risk, security, performance, backward compatibility, test coverage, operability, and overall code quality.

You'll work closely with product, engineering, and company leadership so we keep shipping quickly without trading away the long-term health of the platform.

What You'll Do

• Design, build, test, and maintain scalable backend services in C# and .NET.
• Contribute directly to complex features, critical refactors, and other high-impact technical work.
• Diagnose and resolve issues using production signals and database analysis.
• Define and evolve engineering best practices, coding standards, and the review process.
• Identify opportunities to improve architecture, development practices, and the platform's technical maturity.
• Partner with Product to turn business requirements into pragmatic technical solutions.
• Communicate technical decisions, trade-offs, and risks clearly to engineering and business teams.
• Mentor engineers through code reviews, pairing, technical design discussions, and practical technical coaching.
• Distinguish merge-blocking risks from non-blocking recommendations and stylistic preferences.
• Ensure critical changes include appropriate tests, observability, rollout plans, and rollback options.
• Identify risks automated tests may miss, including concurrency, data integrity, backward compatibility, security, and production failure modes.

What We're Looking For

• Deep experience building and operating production web applications, with strong, defensible opinions about architecture, testing, and code quality.
• Experience working with product and design to build polished, user-facing products.
• Experience building a SaaS product is a plus.

Must-Haves

• Previous experience as a Tech Lead, Staff Engineer, Principal Engineer, or hands-on Software Architect (ideally with two or more years of detailed code review and Pull Request approval experience).
• Strong understanding of API design, service architecture, domain modeling, and data-access patterns.
• Strong knowledge of automated unit and integration testing.
• Sound technical judgment when balancing delivery speed, operational risk, and maintainability.
• A solid grasp of secure coding practices and common web-application vulnerabilities.
• Proficiency in C# and .NET.
• Experience with both NoSQL document databases and SQL relational databases.
• Experience with Git workflows, branch protections, merge strategies, and CI/CD.
• Ability to assess scalability, concurrency, backward compatibility, and data-consistency risks.
• A collaborative approach and clear written English.
• A genuine appetite for learning and growth.
• Comfort working in a remote environment.
• Residence in Portugal and legal eligibility to work here.

How We'll Evaluate For This Role

Our process focuses on practical engineering judgment, not trivia or algorithm puzzles. Expect to review a realistic Pull Request and talk through:

• Which issues should block the merge.
• Which comments matter but shouldn’t block.
• How to give the author technical feedback.
• What additional tests are needed.
• Observability requirements.
• Migration, rollout, feature-flag, and rollback strategies.

We care less about how many issues you spot and more about how well you prioritize risk, explain trade-offs, and make proportionate calls.

Why Join Us?

• Growth: work on a fast-growing, VC-backed platform with real room to advance your career.
• Impact: your code shapes how global organizations run innovation.
• Autonomy: bring your ideas and see them built.
• Learning environment: work with motivated people who care about your development.
• Compensation: a strong package with equity, health insurance, and a tech and learning budget.
• Work setup: remote-first within Portugal. We do meet in person quarterly for planning and team time.

Our Values

This job is for you if you:

• Embrace learning: seek growth and keep building new skills.
• Value impact: do work that matters, for people who care about innovation.
• Drive change: welcome experiments and learn from wins and failures alike.
• Show initiative: bring actionable ideas without waiting to be told.
• Help make innovation work: share our belief that innovation can change how companies operate.