Head of Engineering

Job Description : Head of Engineering - Platform (Backend/Infra)

Location : Bangalore (preferred) / Mumbai (for exceptional candidates)

Experience : 10-15 years

About :

The Client is a fast-scaling fintech company building cutting-edge data intelligence platforms that enable financial institutions to make smarter, faster, and more reliable decisions. Leveraging alternative data, the company powers credit decisioning, fraud detection, and risk management systems at scale while maintaining BFSI-grade security and compliance.

Role Overview :

We are looking for a Head of Engineering Platform to lead the architecture, scalability, and reliability of our core platform systems. This role will drive engineering strategy across backend systems, data infrastructure, and cloud platforms, while building and mentoring a high-performing engineering team.

This is a high-impact leadership role, reporting directly to the CTO and CEO, with significant ownership over technology direction and execution.

Key Responsibilities :

Platform Architecture & Scalability :

- Design and scale API-first, high-concurrency platforms handling millions of daily transactions

- Ensure low latency, high availability, and resilient distributed systems

Data Infrastructure :

- Build and manage large-scale data ingestion pipelines

- Ensure 99.99% uptime, efficiency, and fault tolerance

Risk, Fraud & Compliance Systems :

- Architect systems for fraud detection and risk management

- Ensure adherence to BFSI-grade compliance (SOC2, ISO 27001, GDPR, RBI guidelines)

Engineering Leadership :

- Lead and scale the engineering team from 12 to 25+ members

- Drive a culture of ownership, innovation, and engineering excellence

Technology Ownership :

- Define and manage infrastructure across AWS/GCP/Azure

- Oversee containerization (Kubernetes, Docker) and observability systems

Engineering Best Practices :

- Implement and drive CI/CD, automation, monitoring, and incident management

- Establish strong DevOps and reliability engineering practices

What Were Looking For :

Must-Have Experience :

- 10-15 years in backend/platform engineering, including leadership roles (Head/Director/VP)

- Proven experience building high-scale, API-first transactional systems

- Strong expertise in distributed, event-driven architectures (Kafka, Pulsar, microservices)

- Hands-on experience with cloud-native infrastructure and container orchestration

- Deep understanding of system observability, monitoring, and performance optimization

- Experience with fraud detection, risk systems, and BFSI compliance frameworks

Preferred Backgrounds :

- Fintech, payments, neo-banking, or financial services

- High-scale consumer tech (e.g., OTT, gaming, e-commerce, travel platforms)

- Experience managing platform + infrastructure + data ecosystems

Team & Reporting Structure :

- Reports directly to CTO & CEO

- Leads engineering across platform, backend, and infrastructure teams

- Owns 80% platform engineering + 20% application layer integrations

Why Join ?

- Strategic Impact : Lead engineering for a high-growth fintech solving Indias credit gap

- Scale & Complexity : Build systems processing millions of real-time decisions

- Ownership : Direct influence on technology roadmap and architecture

- Mission-Driven : Enable financial inclusion through data intelligence

Role Clarity (Success Profile) :

This role requires a hands-on engineering leader who can :

- Architect high-scale, low-latency platforms

- Combine platform, infrastructure, and data expertise

- Build and scale teams while maintaining engineering excellence

- Operate effectively in a fast-scaling fintech environment with strong compliance requirements