Lead Backend Developer

Role Description We’re looking for a Lead Backend Developer to join our new development team within the global VR video streaming ecosystem. This person will lead the Billing team while staying hands-on. Lead system design for new features and complex changes; create and maintain architecture documentation and ADRs Drive code quality, review standards, and engineering practices (testing, CI/CD, code style, operational readiness) Lead technical incident response; write post-mortems with clear root causes and follow-up actions Identify and manage technical debt - maintain a prioritized backlog and advocate for regular capacity to address it Translate product requirements into technical solutions, milestones, and well-decomposed tasks Mentor engineers through design sessions, pair programming, and code reviews; reduce key-person risk by spreading knowledge across the team Define and maintain SLIs/SLOs for team-owned services; ensure sufficient logging, metrics, and alerting are in place Coordinate technical dependencies with other teams (Content Serving, Processing, UGC, DevOps); represent the team in architecture syncs and design reviews Evaluate and recommend technologies, patterns, and tools; pilot new approaches where they bring clear benefit Qualifications 4+ years of backend software engineering experience with Golang or/and PHP, including demonstrated technical leadership (leading design, mentoring engineers, owning architecture) Experience with NoSQL databases (MongoDB or similar) Experience with relational databases (PostgreSQL or similar) Experience of using Golang in production environment Experience designing and evolving backend architectures - APIs, data flows, service decomposition Strong understanding of testing practices (unit, integration, E2E) and CI/CD pipelines Ability to communicate technical trade-offs, risks, and designs clearly to both engineers and non-technical stakeholders English B1+ (written and verbal communication) Requirements Experience with various video formats, media containers, and transcoding pipelines Experience defining and working with SLIs/SLOs in production Understanding of message brokers and event-driven architectures (RabbitMQ, Kafka, or similar) Tech Stack PHP MongoDB PostgreSQL Kubernetes Docker CI/CD Redis Kafka RabbitMQ Go Hiring Process HR Screening (30 min) Team Interview (1.5 hour) System Design Interview (1 hour) Live Coding Interview (1 hour) CEO Interview (30 min) Benefits Please note: fully remote contract role. B2B only - work as an independent contractor with your own legal entity. The chance to be part of a pioneering team in a rapidly evolving industry Direct impact on the future of immersive media Flexible working hours and remote-first culture A team that values initiative, clarity, and collaboration Access to all tools and tech you need Unlimited DeoVR Premium A work environment where ideas matter and people are treated with respect