Lead Backend Engineer

Job description

US Mobile is building the future of wireless communication. The goal: [one unified network](http://usmobile.com/manifesto) open to any person and any device, worldwide. Connection without walls. We’re getting there by empowering customers. All three major networks on one phone and one plan, plus home internet from Starlink. No lock-in. No commitments. Custom fit plans at every price point. 24/7 customer support with real people, empowered to help. We get real-time feedback [from Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/USMobile/), surveys, and customer support informing product roadmaps and everything we do. It’s working — we’re [The Wirecutter’s favorite cellular carrier](https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-wireless-carrier/), and Consumer Reports has named us [the top-rated mobile carrier](https://usmobile.com/cr) two years in a row.\* And we’re building innovative systems that scale. A network agnostic tech stack. Agile, cross-functional teams built on trust and mutual respect. This work isn’t for everyone. If you work fast, flexibly, and collaboratively — without compromising standards — we want to hear from you. We’re looking for an exceptional backend engineering leader: a hands-on manager and technical mentor who can build, grow, and guide a team of backend engineers while directly shaping our architecture and roadmap as we scale. ## About the Role The Lead Backend Engineer owns the growth and output of a backend engineering pod — hiring, developing, and managing a small team — while remaining a strong hands-on contributor and a voice in technical direction. This is a player-coach role: you’ll write code and review architecture alongside your team, not just direct it from a distance, while also partnering with Talent to build out the team and with Engineering leadership to shape where the backend goes next. ### You Will: - **Build and lead a team** – hire, mentor, and grow a high-performing group of backend engineers as we scale. - **Shape technical direction** – influence architecture, tooling, and roadmap decisions across backend systems. - **Stay hands-on** – architect optimal solutions to our business problems and ship features alongside your team. - **Scale our systems** – help us grow to tens of millions of customers and connected devices. - **Raise the bar** – build quality tools and frameworks to ensure a high-quality product. - **Protect reliability** – build systems to ensure continuous uptime. ### Responsibilities: - Influence technical direction and architectural decisions across backend systems – balancing pragmatism with long-term scalability. - Champion a bias toward action – prototype to resolve disagreements, ship incrementally, and avoid analysis paralysis on reversible decisions. - Model high autonomy for your team – make sound judgment calls without unnecessary approval layers, while remaining accountable for outcomes. - Continuously improve systems beyond your immediate scope – identify and fix inefficiencies, technical debt, or brittle abstractions wherever you find them, regardless of team ownership. - Develop and maintain RESTful APIs using Java (Spring Boot or related web frameworks) or Python (Flask, Django) - Design and implement asynchronous service communication using RabbitMQ or AWS SQS/SNS. - Work with NoSQL databases like MongoDB for data modeling and storage. - Collaborate with Product, QA, and DevOps teams to deliver reliable, scalable features, representing backend engineering in cross-functional planning. - Write clean, testable, well-documented code with unit and integration tests – staying hands-on as an active contributor, not just a reviewer. - Participate in system architecture design, code reviews, and performance tuning. - Set and uphold engineering standards and best practices across your team. - Manage, mentor, and grow a team of backend engineers – owning hiring decisions, performance management, career development, and day-to-day team health. - Partner closely with Talent/Recruiting to define hiring needs, shape interview processes, and build out the backend engineering team as we scale. ### Qualifications: - 12+ years of experience with Java and Spring Boot, including experience in a technical leadership or people management role - Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field. - Demonstrated experience managing, mentoring, and growing backend engineers, including hiring and performance management. - Proven ability to influence technical direction and drive architectural decisions at a team or organizational level. - Strong stakeholder management skills – able to represent backend engineering’s perspective persuasively in front of executives, PMs, and cross-functional partners. - Comfort operating in a fast paced environment – wearing multiple hats across engineering, hiring, and cross-functional work - Experience partnering with Talent/Recruiting to build and scale engineering teams – defining roles, running hiring processes, and closing candidates. - Strong experience with building and consuming REST APIs. - Hands-on experience with message brokers such as RabbitMQ or AWS SQS/SNS. - Familiarity with MongoDB or other NoSQL database technologies. - Experience integrating and leveraging AI-assisted development tools such as Claude and Opencode to accelerate backend development, including code generation, debugging, and optimization of APIs and services. - Demonstrated ability to incorporate AI tools into the software development lifecycle, using Claude or Opencode for tasks like automated code reviews, documentation generation, and improving system design efficiency. - Solid understanding of Git, CI/CD workflows, and agile development practices. - Excellent debugging, problem-solving, and communication skills. ### Benefits and Perks: - Annual company offsites - Competitive Salary - Gym reimbursement - Commute reimbursement - Flexible working hours - Professional development stipend - Flexible time off - Cell phone service (up to $100/mo)