R&D Lead / Engineering Lead

Full-time | In-office | B2B arrangement available

About the Client

• Our client operates a subscription-based creator platform and social network in the entertainment industry.
• The platform serves more than 200,000 active users and 30,000 creators, with payments and real-time events flowing through the system every second.
• The company has recently secured new funding, is growing rapidly, and is now hiring the senior leaders who will shape its next stage of development.

The Opportunity

This is a top-priority leadership hire for the company.

We are looking for an exceptional and highly versatile engineering leader who can combine strategic technical ownership, hands-on software engineering, people leadership, architecture, security, infrastructure, and strong product understanding.

You will lead the R&D function end-to-end and serve as the most senior technical leader in the organization.

This is not a management-only role. You will set the technical direction and engineering standards, grow and mentor the team, own architecture and security, and remain actively involved in the codebase.

The ideal person can move comfortably from a system-design discussion to reviewing a pull request, making a product decision, and holding a one-to-one meeting—all in the same day.

What You’ll Do

• Own the technical direction: Define the architecture, engineering standards, and technical roadmap required to scale the platform.
• Lead and grow the engineering team: Manage, mentor, recruit, and develop engineers while creating an environment in which the team can perform at its best.
• Remain deeply hands-on: Continue reading, writing, and reviewing code every week, leading through direct technical contribution as well as strategic guidance.
• Own the full technology landscape: Provide credible and decisive leadership across backend, frontend, DevOps, infrastructure, system architecture, and security.
• Take ownership of security: Embed security into the way the platform is designed, developed, deployed, and operated.
• Drive practical AI adoption: Integrate AI-assisted development, automation, and closed-loop processes into the engineering organization to improve speed and productivity.
• Bring strong product judgment: Understand the platform, its users, and its business model, and make technical decisions that support product and commercial goals.
• Protect critical systems: Safeguard payment integrity, uptime, performance, and data accuracy while enabling the company to move quickly.

The Technology Stack

• Languages: TypeScript and Node.js as the primary technologies, with .NET and C#
• Frontend: React 18/19 and Next.js
• Backend and real-time systems: NestJS, Hono, and Socket.IO
• Data and messaging: MongoDB, Redis, BullMQ, AWS SQS, and RabbitMQ
• Infrastructure and platform: AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, and GitHub Actions
• Observability: OpenTelemetry