Java Backend Sr Lead

We are seeking a Backend Lead at the Senior Staff Engineer/Sr Manager level to provide technical leadership across our backend architecture. This is a senior individual-contributor role with broad scope, responsible for shaping engineering strategy, driving cross-team technical initiatives, and setting the long-term architectural vision for backend systems. Key Responsibilities Define and own the long-term technical architecture and strategy across multiple backend systems Act as a technical authority, resolving the most complex and ambiguous engineering challenges Drive cross-team initiatives involving platform scalability, reliability, and system-wide performance Establish engineering standards, governance, and best practices at an organizational level Provide technical mentorship to Staff Engineers, Tech Leads, and senior engineers across teams Partner with senior leadership (Engineering, Product, Security) to align technical strategy with business objectives Lead evaluation and adoption of new technologies, frameworks, and architectural patterns Anticipate scaling challenges and proactively design solutions ahead of business growth Lead root-cause analysis and resolution for major production incidents Influence hiring strategy and engineering culture at a senior level Required Qualifications 7-10 + years of backend engineering experience, including 3+ years operating at a Staff level or above Demonstrated experience architecting large-scale, highly available distributed systems Deep expertise in backend languages, frameworks, and database technologies (SQL and NoSQL) Proven track record of leading cross-functional, multi-team technical initiatives Strong experience with cloud-native architectures, container orchestration, and infrastructure automation Exceptional system design skills, including experience with high-throughput, low-latency systems Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills Experience shaping engineering strategy and influencing decisions beyond a single team Preferred Qualifications Experience scaling engineering organizations through hyper-growth phases Public speaking, technical writing, or open-source contributions demonstrating thought leadership Experience with multi-region, globally distributed systems Background in platform or infrastructure engineering at scale Aviation domain experience External Job Description External Job Description Role Summary We are seeking a Backend Lead at the Senior Staff Engineer level to provide technical leadership across our backend architecture. This is a senior individual-contributor role with broad scope, responsible for shaping engineering strategy, driving cross-team technical initiatives, and setting the long-term architectural vision for backend systems. Key Responsibilities Define and own the long-term technical architecture and strategy across multiple backend systems Act as a technical authority, resolving the most complex and ambiguous engineering challenges Drive cross-team initiatives involving platform scalability, reliability, and system-wide performance Establish engineering standards, governance, and best practices at an organisational level Provide technical mentorship to Staff Engineers, Tech Leads, and senior engineers across teams Partner with senior leadership (Engineering, Product, Security) to align technical strategy with business objectives Lead evaluation and adoption of new technologies, frameworks, and architectural patterns Anticipate scaling challenges and proactively design solutions ahead of business growth Lead root-cause analysis and resolution for major production incidents Influence hiring strategy and engineering culture at a senior level Required Qualifications 7-10 + years of backend engineering experience, including 3+ years operating at a Staff level or above Demonstrated experience architecting large-scale, highly available distributed systems Deep expertise in backend languages, frameworks, and database technologies (SQL and NoSQL) Proven track record of leading cross-functional, multi-team technical initiatives Strong experience with cloud-native architectures, container orchestration, and infrastructure automation Exceptional system design skills, including experience with high-throughput, low-latency systems Strong stakeholder management and executive communication skills Experience shaping engineering strategy and influencing decisio .