Technical Lead

Unico Connect is an AI-first technology partner that builds custom mobile, web, and AI products for clients across multiple geographies. We are hiring a Tech Lead who will own the technical direction of full stack engagements, lead a pod of engineers, and represent Unico Connect directly in front of customers.

The mandatory requirement for this role is hands-on production experience as a senior or lead engineer building full stack web applications with React on the frontend and either Node.js or Python on the backend. The role is hands-on. Expect to spend meaningful time on architecture, complex implementation, and code reviews, while also driving delivery, mentoring a pod of engineers, running client conversations, and contributing to solutioning on new opportunities. A typical week includes a design review on a new module, a working session with a client product owner, paired implementation on a complex flow, and pre-sales input on an active opportunity.

Responsibilities

• Solutioning and architecture: Own end-to-end architecture for client engagements: system design, API contracts, data models, integrations, deployment topology, and trade-off analysis. Document and defend decisions in writing and in client reviews.
• Hands-on full stack delivery: Lead by example on complex modules, performance-critical paths, and high-risk areas of the system using React (with Next.js where relevant) and Node.js (Express, NestJS) or Python (FastAPI, Django, Flask).
• Database design and performance: Drive PostgreSQL schema design, indexing strategy, query optimisation, migrations, and capacity planning. Set the standard for data modelling across the pod.
• Cloud and infrastructure: Set up and operate production workloads on AWS, GCP, or Azure. Make and own decisions on compute, storage, networking, CI/CD pipelines, observability, and cost.
• Code quality and engineering standards: Run code reviews, define engineering conventions, and raise the quality bar across the team. Set the standard for testing, linting, branching, release management, and incident response.
• Team leadership and mentorship: Lead, mentor, and grow a pod of engineers. Plan sprints, unblock the team, run retros, and own delivery commitments.
• Client engagement: Act as the primary technical point of contact for the client. Run technical discussions, present trade-offs, manage scope and risks, and keep stakeholders informed in writing.
• Pre-sales and solutioning: Partner with sales and account leadership on new opportunities, including discovery calls, effort estimation, architecture diagrams, and solution write-ups.
• AI-assisted development: Use Claude, Cursor, and similar tools day to day. Set the standard for the team on prompts, patterns, AI-assisted code review, and where these tools are and are not appropriate.
• AI feature delivery: Where an engagement calls for it, design and ship LLM-based features into production, including prompt design, retrieval pipelines, evaluation, observability, and guardrails.
  

Requirements

• Hands-on full stack production experience as a senior or lead engineer (mandatory). Must have personally built and shipped production web applications using React on the frontend and either Node.js or Python on the backend. POCs, internal tools, and coursework do not qualify.
• 5 to 6 years of professional software engineering experience, including at least 1 to 2 years in a tech lead, team lead, or senior engineering role with direct responsibility for technical decisions and team output.
• Hands-on cloud experience on at least one of AWS, GCP, or Azure, including deploying and operating production workloads. Comfort with at least three of: EC2 or equivalent compute, S3 or equivalent object storage, Lambda or serverless functions, RDS or managed databases, CloudFront or equivalent CDN, IAM, VPC.
• Strong proficiency in JavaScript and TypeScript with React and Next.js (SSR, SSG, app router) on the frontend, and either Node.js (Express, NestJS) or Python (FastAPI, Django, Flask) on the backend. API design experience across REST and GraphQL. Willingness and demonstrated ability to pick up the other backend stack as engagements demand.
• Production experience with Docker, Git-based workflows, and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, or equivalent).
• Strong PostgreSQL skills: schema design, normalisation, indexing, query performance, migrations, and at least one production system where you owned the data model end-to-end.
• Caching and event-driven architecture: Hands-on with Redis (or equivalent) for caching and session management, and message queues or event-driven patterns (RabbitMQ, SQS, Kafka, or NATS) for asynchronous workflows.
• AI and LLM feature delivery in production. Experience designing and shipping at least one AI feature to production, covering prompt design, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, evaluation, observability, and guardrails. POCs and demos do not qualify.
• System design depth and end-to-end ownership. Able to take an ambiguous problem, break it into components, evaluate alternatives, produce an architecture that holds up under review and load, plan execution, and ship to production with limited supervision.
• Excellent written and spoken English, with experience working directly with international clients. Confident, clear, and firm in stakeholder communication. Comfortable presenting to senior stakeholders, pushing back where needed, and managing expectations across time zones.