Lead Software Engineer

Job Title: Lead Software Engineer - Backend

Team: Chatbot Engineering

Location: Bangalore, India (Hybrid)

About Us

Sense is transforming the way companies hire with AI-powered technology designed to bring unprecedented speed, precision, and personalization to every step of the recruiting process. Our mission is to reimagine how organizations engage with talent—creating faster, smarter, and more human experiences for employers, recruiters, and job seekers alike. Founded in 2015, Sense is a high-growth HR Tech SaaS company serving over 1,000 customers worldwide. With 250+ team members and backing from Google Ventures, SoftBank, Accel, and Avataar Ventures, we've scaled rapidly and continue to lead innovation in talent engagement and automation.

About the Role

At Sense, our Chatbot Team is responsible for developing highly intuitive and performant conversational agents that significantly enhance the recruiting experience. As a Lead Software Engineer on this team, you will serve as the technical cornerstone, responsible for designing the automated intelligence that drives sophisticated, multi-turn interactions for millions of candidates.

You will take ownership of the end-to-end architectural vision, from initial concept and design through to global deployment. Your focus will be on optimizing high-throughput communication pipelines to maintain our platform's leadership in the HR Tech sector. While you will guide the execution of new features, your primary responsibility lies in ensuring the structural integrity, scalability, and long-term technical health of our backend systems.

Responsibilities

• System Architecture: Lead the design and implementation of robust, high-scale backend services, ensuring they meet stringent performance and reliability Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
• Engineering Excellence: Establish and uphold high engineering standards through the creation of clean, testable code and by leading thorough peer code reviews.
• Distributed Systems Optimization: Develop and maintain high-throughput pipelines capable of handling asynchronous communication at scale with minimal latency.
• Strategic Observability: Define the strategy for monitoring agent performance and Large Language Model (LLM) health, utilizing tools like Datadog and Arize AI, and lead the triage of systemic issues.
• Technical Roadmap: Proactively identify and address architectural bottlenecks and technical debt to ensure long-term stability and customer satisfaction.
• Technical Leadership: Act as a key driver of the team's mission, mentoring other engineers and serving as the technical authority on backend patterns and distributed systems.

Job Requirements

• Experience: Possess 5-10 years of progressive software development experience, with a demonstrated history of architecting and operating scalable, distributed backend systems.
• Distributed Systems Mastery: Demonstrate expert-level proficiency in building and scaling backend services within a distributed environment.
  • Possess a deep understanding of Web Frameworks, such as Flask, and their underlying mechanics.
  • Exhibit strong proficiency in Messaging Brokers, including Kafka and RabbitMQ, for managing high-throughput asynchronous communication.
  • Show advanced knowledge of Relational Databases, such as MySQL, encompassing schema design, query optimization, and scaling strategies.
  • Have experience implementing Distributed Caching solutions, like Redis or Memcached, to reduce latency and enhance system performance.
• Cloud Infrastructure: Accumulate significant experience with AWS for the deployment and management of backend services, data infrastructure, and serverless architectures.
• Performance Management: Provide evidence of experience with Application Performance Monitoring (APM) tools like Datadog, New Relic, or similar for monitoring and tuning system health.
• Problem-Solving: Cultivate a 'product-first' engineering mindset, focusing on building solutions that address the user's underlying problems rather than merely meeting technical specifications.
• Communication: Possess excellent communication and collaboration skills, enabling effective teamwork with cross-functional teams and stakeholders.

Good to have Skills

• Programming in Python: Proficiency in Python is considered a valuable asset.
• LLM Observability: Familiarity with tools such as Arize AI or LangSmith.
• Multi-Agent Frameworks: Prior knowledge of or experience working with frameworks like CrewAI or LangGraph.

Worksite Policy

• Hybrid Model: This position is based in our Bangalore office. We prioritize in-person collaboration and operate under a policy of working from the office, with an allowance of 12 Work From Home (WFH) days per quarter.

Additional Information – Perks & Benefits

• Equity
• Medical insurance for employees and dependents
• Quarterly Professional Development allowance
• Company Wellness Days (Enjoy a 3-day weekend in months without public holidays)

Sense is an equal-opportunity employer. We are committed to fostering diversity, inclusion, and belonging as core components of our success, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, age, or any other legally protected characteristic. All applicant information will be treated with confidentiality in accordance with EEO guidelines.