Lead Engineer/Full Stack Engineer

About the Project We are developing a high-performance financial transaction and data platform designed to process financial activity reliably and provide real-time transaction data, account information, analytics, and reporting through a modern web application. The platform is currently in active development, with a focused engineering team. We are looking for a Senior Full-Stack Engineer who can work across the frontend and backend and take ownership of important product and technical components. This is a hands-on engineering role for someone comfortable working with transaction processing, asynchronous systems, APIs, databases, real-time data, and scalable application architecture. What You'll Work On ● Build and improve full-stack application features ● Develop backend services for transaction processing ● Design and implement REST APIs ● Build responsive web interfaces and dashboards ● Design and optimize PostgreSQL schemas and queries ● Implement real-time transaction and system updates ● Work with asynchronous and event-driven processing ● Develop reliable background jobs and data-processing services ● Implement authentication, authorization, and access controls ● Improve application performance and reliability ● Write unit and integration tests ● Debug and resolve production-level issues ● Participate in architectural and technical decisions ● Review code and contribute to engineering standards Core Platform Components The platform includes: ● User and account management ● Financial transaction processing ● Account balances and transaction records ● Transaction history ● Real-time activity monitoring ● Analytics and reporting ● External API integrations ● Notifications ● Audit logging ● Role-based access control Technical Environment Frontend ● React ● Next.js ● TypeScript ● Tailwind CSS Backend ● Node.js / TypeScript ● Rust is a strong plus ● REST APIs ● WebSockets ● Asynchronous processing Data & Messaging ● PostgreSQL ● Redis ● Kafka or NATS ● Event-driven data processing Infrastructure ● AWS ● CI/CD ● Git ● GitHub Requirements ● 5+ years of professional software engineering experience ● Strong experience developing production full-stack applications ● Strong React and TypeScript experience ● Strong backend development experience with Node.js or another modern backend language ● Strong PostgreSQL and SQL knowledge ● Experience designing production REST APIs ● Experience with asynchronous/concurrent application development ● Experience with real-time systems or WebSockets ● Understanding of transaction consistency and data integrity ● Experience with Redis or similar caching systems ● Experience with event-driven architectures ● Strong debugging and problem-solving skills ● Experience writing automated tests ● Comfortable working with Git and collaborative development workflows Nice to Have ● Production experience with Rust ● Kafka or NATS experience ● Distributed systems experience ● High-throughput data processing ● Financial technology or payment systems experience ● AWS experience ● CI/CD experience ● Experience optimizing latency and application performance ● Experience working with large datasets What We Value We are looking for an engineer who can understand the system as a whole, not just implement isolated tickets. You should be able to: ● Understand an existing codebase quickly ● Make sound technical decisions ● Identify performance and reliability problems ● Design maintainable solutions ● Work independently ● Communicate clearly with other engineers ● Take ownership of features from development through testing and deployment We are particularly interested in candidates who can demonstrate real production experience with high-volume transaction processing, real-time systems, backend architecture, and data-intensive applications. Initial Engagement The initial project phase will involve reviewing the existing architecture and codebase, implementing new functionality, improving existing services, and strengthening performance, reliability, and testing. This is intended to be a long-term engagement for the right engineer. Hiring Process We use a structured process to evaluate practical engineering experience and technical ability. Step 1. Application & Background Review We will review your proposal, professional experience, GitHub/portfolio, and relevant production projects. We are particularly interested in candidates who have personally worked on: ● High-performance backend systems ● Transaction processing ● Real-time applications ● Distributed or event-driven systems ● PostgreSQL and data-intensive applications ● Production APIs and scalable services Step 2. Technical Assessment Shortlisted candidates will complete a 1 hour technical assessment focused on practical engineering problems related to the project. Topics may include: ● Backend architecture ● Concurrent and asynchronous processing ● Database design and PostgreSQL ● API design ● Transaction consistency ● Event-driven systems ● Performance and scalability ● Debugging and reliability The assessment is intended to evaluate how you approach real engineering problems rather than test memorized theory. Step 3. Technical Interview Candidates who perform well in the assessment will have a technical interview with the engineering team. We will discuss: ● Your previous production projects ● Architectural decisions you have made ● Technical challenges you have solved ● Your approach to performance and scalability ● How you would approach components of this platform Selection After the technical discussion, we will select the candidate based on demonstrated production experience, technical problem-solving ability, communication, and fit with the project requirements. Please do not request a call before the technical assessment. We prefer to first evaluate your background and practical technical skills through the structured process above. To Apply Please provide: 1. A brief summary of your full-stack experience 2. Examples of production applications you have personally developed 3. Your experience with React/Next.js and backend development 4. Your experience with PostgreSQL and Redis 5. Examples of systems involving high-volume or real-time data 6. Your GitHub, portfolio, or relevant project links 7. Your hourly rate and availability Please focus your proposal on specific systems you personally built or significantly contributed to, rather than a general list of technologies.