Lead Backend Engineer

About the Role

We're looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to own entire systems and lead technical initiatives. You'll design and build backend services that power Aplazo's financial products, mentor engineers, and drive quality across your squad.

At this level, you're the technical leader of your squad—breaking down ambiguous problems, delivering complex features end-to-end, and making the trade-offs that balance speed with reliability.

What You'll Do

Own systems end-to-end — Design, build, and operate backend services from idea to production

Lead technically — Run design reviews, set technical direction, and make architecture decisions for your squad

Mentor engineers — Help E1/E2 engineers grow through pairing, code review, and coaching

Drive quality — Champion testing strategy, observability, and engineering best practices

Leverage AI strategically — Use AI for architecture exploration, large refactors, and risk modeling; build or champion AI-powered tools for the squad

Handle incidents — Lead incident response and blameless postmortems in your domain

Ship predictably — Break down ambiguous problems into clear milestones and deliver on commitments

What We're Looking For

Technical

5+ years building backend systems at scale

Strong experience with Java (Python/Go a plus)

Deep knowledge of distributed systems, APIs, and cloud infrastructure (AWS preferred)

Expert-level debugging across service boundaries

Track record of designing systems that balance scalability, reliability, and speed

AI Fluency

Uses AI tools (Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT) daily for coding, debugging, and analysis

Uses AI strategically for architecture exploration, large refactors, and prototyping

Builds or champions squad-level AI-powered tools (e.g., smart alerting, test generation)

Keeps the team ahead of new AI capabilities relevant to backend development and fintech

Leadership & Communication

Experience mentoring engineers and leading technical discussions

Clear communicator who can explain trade-offs to engineers, PMs, and stakeholders

Comfortable with ambiguity and changing requirements

Fluent in Spanish; working knowledge of English for cross-team collaboration

Mindset

Product-minded—you care about business outcomes, not just code

Strong ownership mentality; you see problems through to resolution

Curious about fintech, lending, and the Mexican financial ecosystem

Nice to Have

Experience in fintech, payments, or lending

Familiarity with Mexican financial regulation (CNBV, Condusef)

On-call and incident management experience

Contributions to engineering culture (tech talks, RFCs, tooling)

Our Stack

Java (primary), Python, Go · AWS (ECS, Lambda) · PostgreSQL · Kafka · DataDog · Pulumi · Jenkins

Why Aplazo

Our mission is to empower financial access and opportunity across Latin America through fair, simple, and transparent solutions. Our tech vision: be the most beloved and innovative tech organization in Latin America.

We're a Series B fintech growing fast—you'll have real ownership, impact, and the chance to shape how millions of people access credit.