Lead Backend Software Engineer (Product API)

8+ years of software development experience. 2+ years of experience mentoring and providing technical guidance to other engineers. Strong experience designing and implementing GraphQL APIs at scale. Proven track record of building highly efficient and highly available backend services using NodeJS, Ruby, Golang, Python, or similar. Experience operating in cloud computing environments using modern software deployment technologies (e.g. Docker, Kubernetes, AWS). Deep understanding of API design principles, RESTful and GraphQL patterns, caching strategies, and performance optimization techniques. Experience working with large amounts of data and making data-based decisions. Strong systems thinking with the ability to design cohesive API abstractions. Experience building proxy and aggregation layers that integrate multiple backend services into unified APIs. Familiarity with experimentation frameworks, feature flag systems, and A/B testing infrastructure. Experience and aptitude for collaborating and communicating with internal stakeholders. Understanding of video streaming product ecosystems and the unique challenges of building APIs for multi-platform applications.

Provide technical leadership to the Product API team. Collaborate with product and client engineering teams to design and deliver GraphQL APIs. Own and evolve critical product subsystems. Build and maintain proxy and augmentation layers. Drive continuous improvements to the reliability, performance, scalability, and maintainability of Philo's product API infrastructure. Collaborate with data science and product analytics teams to instrument the API layer for experimentation. Build and enhance observability tools. Work with infrastructure teams to optimize database queries, implement effective caching strategies, and ensure DataServer scales efficiently.