Staff Technical Lead, Back End
Vena Solutions is seeking a Staff Technical Lead for one of our Core Engineering back end teams. You will act as the engineering team leader driving high-quality delivery of improvements to Vena's core product infrastructure -- the foundational systems that underpin our platform and serve thousands of customers. This role sits at the heart of what keeps Vena running, and involves a meaningful mix of steady-state maintenance, feature work, and active modernization efforts. It is a match for you if you thrive at the intersection of technical leadership and hands-on engineering, and you are energized by helping a team deliver great software while growing as individual contributors.
- Lead day-to-day engineering operations for one of Core Engineering’s back end teams, ensuring consistent delivery of improvements to Vena's core platform while maintaining and improving long-term codebase quality and sustainability.
- Serve as the technical leader within the team, partnering with Software Architects to drive system design decisions for major initiatives in alignment with the broader architectural vision.
- Tackle complex technical challenges in foundational systems, providing hands-on solutions while empowering team members to contribute effectively.
- Collaborate closely with the team’s Manager, Product Managers and stakeholders to ensure roadmaps are realistic, delivery commitments are met, and resource gaps are proactively identified and addressed.
- Critically review epics and project scopes to ensure work is well-defined, properly prioritized, and clearly understood by the team.
- Mentor and develop engineers through coaching, pair programming, and thoughtful code reviews, fostering a culture of continuous learning and engineering excellence.
- Champion long-term codebase health by ensuring technical debt is appropriately identified, prioritized, and addressed during sprint and quarterly planning -- including modernization initiatives on core infrastructure.
- Promote and uphold engineering best practices, development standards, and continuous improvement initiatives across the team.
- Act as a Guild or Chapter Lead, driving cross-team alignment and advancing engineering practices at the organizational level.
- Drive the adoption of AI-driven development practices and innovative tooling to enhance engineering productivity, streamline workflows, and accelerate high-quality software delivery.
- 8+ years of experience in software development, with a strong focus on back end / server-side engineering
- 2+ years of experience leading a software development team as a Tech Lead, or operating in a similar leadership capacity
- Strong proficiency in Java and experience building and maintaining RESTful APIs
- Interest in AI and willingness to explore AI-driven solutions to enhance performance and drive efficiencies
- Experience with Dropwizard or Spring Boot (Dropwizard experience is a strong plus)
- Experience working on and modernizing large, established codebases
- Proven ability to identify, assess, and mitigate risks throughout the software development lifecycle
- Demonstrated experience delivering against SaaS product roadmaps with a focus on improving development efficiency and delivery outcomes
- Strong track record in mentoring engineers and leading effective project planning and execution
- Hands-on experience working within Agile development environments
- Excellent problem-solving, organizational, and communication skills, with the ability to align technical and non-technical stakeholders
- Experience with cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure or AWS
- Experience with CI/CD tools such as Azure DevOps or Jenkins
- Post-secondary education in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical discipline and/or equivalent experience