Lead Software Engineer - Backend

About Prodigal

We are a fast-growing Bay Area-based startup backed by leading investors like Menlo Ventures, Accel and Y-Combinator.

Our core product offering is an AI, NLP powered SaaS that helps automate lending operations for financial services firms across US, Europe and Canada. The Prodigal team has deep technical talent today and we believe there is an opportunity to build an iconic vertical software business that will fundamentally impact how the multi-trillion-dollar debt industry is managed. Debt has such a massive impact on consumers and prior to Prodigal, the industry was saddled with painful, low value manual workflows, and poor customer experience- our mission is to humanize the debt repayment process through automation and data.

What are we looking for?

Prodigal is looking for a Lead Platform Engineer who will play a key role in architecting our systems for scale, building robust and distributed data platforms.

🏆 Responsibilities

• Design and architect systems for scale, build robust platforms and applications
• Code, design, and test in a heterogeneous technology environment, the role involves 70% Individual Contribution(IC) work.
• Lead code reviews & documentation as well as take on complex bug fixes, especially on high-risk problems
• Curious to learn and work on multiple programming languages. Our tech stack includes python, golang and nodejs.
• Conduct performance analysis, capacity management and troubleshoot large scale distributed systems
• Accountable for non-functional aspects of the services and strive to improve on key technical metrics
• Ensure quality and completeness of the product through unit, integration, and regression capabilities. 
• Partner across the engineering team to take on company-wide initiatives spanning multiple projects
• Influence the technical direction for the team and mentor junior engineers
• Ensure the quality of architecture and design of systems. Responsible for end-to-end architecture, high-level design/low-level design of various systems and applications that you are assigned to. You will also be responsible for writing code and deploying these enterprise-grade applications to production including operational excellence.

✅ Requirements

• B.S./M.S/Equivalent in Computer Science or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of experience in architecting, designing and writing code for high throughput, distributed, data platforms
• Strong experience with NoSQL & SQL databases, Datawarehouse, Datalakes such as MongoDB, DynamoDB, Postgresql, Redshift, Snowflake, BigQuery etc
• Strong experience in Python with a focus on writing scalable, secure and highly available software applications. Should be open to learning and quickly adopting new languages. Our tech stack includes Python, Golang, Nodejs in that order.
• Experience working with AWS services, Docker, Kubernetes and DevOps tools.
• Experience working with logging and monitoring tools such as Sentry, CW, Prometheus, ELK etc.
• Strong expertise in troubleshooting complex production issues.
• Strong expertise in troubleshooting someone else's code.
• Expertise in configuration management for deploying, configuring, and managing servers and system
• Bonus : Foundational knowledge in fundamentals of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence
• Good problem solving, critical thinking, and communication skills. Should be able to find the right balance between perfection and speed of execution
• Self-starter and self-learner, who never settles, is ready to jump into a variety of technologies and languages and is able to coordinate and collaborate with other team members
• Comfortable working in a fast paced environment while continuously evaluating emerging technologies

⚙️ Our Tech Stack

• Services built on Python, Golang & Nodejs
• Databases - MongoDB, RDS
• Deployments on EKS, EC2, Lambda
• Databricks
• and other AWS services

🎁 What we offer

• Learn Generative AI & LLMs. We are aggressively building in this space and you'll get the opportunity to learn and experiment with the latest technologies.
• Fast paced Growth.  You’ll get the chance to learn from (and teach) some of the brightest and most skilled people you’ll ever meet.
• Continuous education.  As relentless seekers of knowledge, we sponsor and support any training materials, books, courses, exam fees for upskilling yourself in areas related to your role - but that's not where it ends. If you make a good case for some extra learning, we're delighted to foot the tab.
• Health insurance. Health always comes first. The health of your family is as important to us, as it is to you. We offer insurance coverage for both you and your family.
• Flexible schedule. We're not a "clock in, clock out" company. Morning person? Start work while the world’s still sleeping. Night owl? Ramp things up while others are winding down. You’re fully trusted to create the right conditions for your own personal peak productivity. We only ask that you’re available to your teammates for a good chunk of the day.
• Generous leave policy.  Take all the time you need to recharge your batteries - no permission process or vacation allowance here. Because a rested, relaxed, and refreshed mind is a happy and effective mind.

⚡ Find out more about us

• About Prodigal
• Products we are building
• Prodigal raises $12M led by Menlo Ventures