Engineering Manager | Principal Engineer: INR 40 LPA

We are seeking a transformative technical leader to join our client's engineering organization as an Engineering Manager or Principal Engineer. This is a dual-focus role requiring a blend of deep technical architecture and people leadership. You will be responsible for the technical vision, architectural governance, and the professional growth of high-performing engineering teams. You will operate at the intersection of strategy and execution—mentoring engineers, driving system design, and ensuring the scalability, reliability, and security of our platform. You will act as a bridge between product management and engineering, translating business requirements into robust technical roadmaps. Key Responsibilities (a) Technical Strategy & Architecture Define and drive the long-term technical roadmap and architectural strategy for the platform Champion engineering excellence by establishing best practices for code quality, testing, CI/CD, and observability Lead the design and review of complex, distributed systems; ensure architectural decisions align with scalability, performance, and security goals Evaluate emerging technologies and frameworks to solve business problems; make build-vs-buy decisions Drive technical debt reduction initiatives and refactoring strategies to maintain high system velocity (b) Team Leadership & Development Manage, mentor, and scale a team of [Junior/Mid/Senior] engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, curiosity, and collaboration Conduct regular 1:1s, perform performance reviews, and create tailored development plans for direct reports Serve as a technical coach; facilitate code reviews, pair programming, and knowledge-sharing sessions Recruit top-tier engineering talent and build a diverse, inclusive team (c) Product & Delivery Partner with Product Managers and Designers to scope, prioritize, and execute on product roadmaps Ensure timely delivery of projects by removing blockers and managing technical risks Represent the engineering team to stakeholders, translating technical complexity into business value Implement and refine agile processes (Scrum/Kanban) to optimize team velocity and predictability (d) Cross-Functional Influence Collaborate with SRE and DevOps to establish SLOs, incident response protocols, and performance monitoring Communicate technical standards and architectural guardrails to the broader organization Qualifications & Requirements (a) Experience 8+ years of professional software development experience 3+ years of experience in an engineering management or principal/lead architect capacity Proven track record of delivering large-scale, production-grade software systems Experience migrating monolithic architectures to microservices or modular architectures is a plus (b) Technical Expertise Deep understanding of distributed systems design, concurrency, and fault tolerance Strong grasp of cloud-native architectures (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) Proficiency in data modeling (SQL/NoSQL) and messaging/event-driven architectures (Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS) Solid foundation in API design (REST, GraphQL, or gRPC) and system security (OAuth, JWT, Zero Trust) Experienced with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and CI/CD pipelines Strong understanding of observability (metrics, logging, tracing) and performance tuning (c) Leadership Skills Demonstrated ability to manage and grow remote/onsite engineering teams Excellent conflict resolution and stakeholder management skills Strong written and verbal communication skills; you can author technical RFCs and present to the executive team Show more