8+ years of hands-on software development experience Proven leadership experience managing or leading a team Experience acting as a “player-coach” Strong experience building distributed systems Hands-on experience with API-first design Experience with AWS cloud architecture Ability to design systems with clear service ownership, reliability, and modularity Experience establishing best practices for distributed communication, observability, and error handling Experience with relational and NoSQL databases, message queues/brokers, and distributed system patterns Strong communication skills Ability to thrive in a fast-paced, iterative development environment Excellent command of the full SDLC