Tech Lead, Digital API (Node.js) - TX

The Role

Digital API team is looking for a hands-on Tech Lead with deep Node.js/TypeScript expertise to design and deliver domain-driven microservices for customer-facing digital experiences. You’ll own greenfield builds from zero-to-production, lead engineers by example (coding ~70% of the time), and drive cross-team triage while keeping leadership proactively informed.

What You’Ll Do

• Design & build domain-driven, event-aware microservices in Node.js/TypeScript (Express/Fastify/NestJS) with clean, testable code.
• Architect greenfield systems: service boundaries, data models, REST APIs, event streams, CI/CD, observability, and runtime topology.
• Set API standards: versioning, OpenAPI/Swagger, pagination, error contracts, resiliency patterns (timeouts, retries, circuit breakers).
• Own production readiness: SLOs, dashboards, alerting, runbooks; lead incident triage/bridge calls and drive blameless RCAs.
• Collaborate across teams (web, mobile, data, security, ops) to unblock work, sequence dependencies, and land integrated releases.
• Communicate proactively with leadership: crisp status, risk/mitigation, dependencies, and measurable outcomes.
• Raise the bar: code reviews, engineering best practices, mentoring, pair programming, tech talks, and documentation.
• Think two steps ahead: anticipate edge cases, scaling, operability, and cost; recommend pragmatic sequencing and trade-offs.

Tech Stack You’ll Work With

• Languages/Frameworks: Node.js, TypeScript, Express/Fastify/NestJS
• APIs: REST, OpenAPI/Swagger, OAuth2/OIDC, JWT
• Data: PostgreSQL/MySQL, NoSQL (MongoDB/DynamoDB), Redis cache
• Messaging/Streaming: Kafka/RabbitMQ (sagas, outbox, idempotency)
• Cloud & Platform: One major cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP), Docker, Kubernetes, API Gateway/Ingress, IaC (Terraform/CloudFormation)
• CI/CD & Observability: GitHub Actions/Jenkins, ELK/Dynatrace, feature flags, OpenTelemetry, Datadog/New Relic/Prometheus, log aggregation

What You’Ll Bring

• 8+ years backend engineering (or equivalent impact), 3+ years technical leadership on product teams.
• Expert-level Node.js/TypeScript with proven delivery of domain-driven microservices at scale.
• Strong grasp of DDD (entities/aggregates/bounded contexts), event-driven architectures, and microservice patterns (saga, outbox, circuit breaker).
• Designed secure, resilient public APIs used by web/mobile clients; deep understanding of authN/authZ (OAuth2/OIDC), secrets, and TLS.
• Production experience with Kubernetes and cloud-native deployment, CI/CD, and observability (metrics, traces, logs, SLOs).
• Demonstrated success leading triage/incident response and driving RCAs to lasting improvements.
• Outstanding communication—able to simplify complex trade-offs, tell a delivery story, and keep partners aligned.
• Bias for action: you go the extra mile, anticipate the “next two steps,” and ship high-quality software.

Nice To Have

• Experience in telecom (ordering, provisioning, billing, identity) or large consumer digital platforms.
• API gateways (Apigee/Kong), rate limiting/quotas, multi-tenant patterns.
• Performance tuning, capacity planning, and cost optimization in cloud environments.

Compensation, Benefits and Duration

• Minimum Compensation: USD 54,000
• Maximum Compensation: USD 189,000
• Compensation is based on actual experience and qualifications of the candidate. The above is a reasonable and a good faith estimate for the role.
• Medical, vision, and dental benefits, 401k retirement plan, variable pay/incentives, paid time off, and paid holidays are available for full time employees.
• This position is available for independent contractors
• No applications will be considered if received more than 120 days after the date of this post