Tech Lead

About Alaan

Alaan is the Middle East's first AI-powered spend management platform, built to help businesses save time and money.

Our all-in-one solution combines smart corporate cards, real-time expense tracking, AI-powered automation, seamless accounting integrations, and deep financial insights, designed to simplify finance operations and maximize control over company spend.

Founded in 2022, Alaan is already the trusted partner of over 2,000 leading businesses across the UAE and KSA, including G42, Careem, McDonald's, Tabby, Al Barari, Rove Hotels, Rivoli, and CarSwitch. Together, our customers have saved over AED 100 million with Alaan.

In just three years, Alaan has become the #1 expense management platform in the Middle East, and we've done it while becoming profitable.

Backed by Y Combinator and top global investors, including founders and executives of leading startups, Alaan is built by a world-class team from McKinsey, BCG, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, Zomato, Careem, Rippling, and other high-growth companies.

We're not just building software. We're reimagining how finance works for modern businesses across the region.

About the role

We are looking for a Tech Lead to design, build, and optimize our platform architecture. You will play a key role in leading the backend team, ensuring high availability, scalability, and performance of our services. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in Node.js, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP), APIs, and event-driven architectures, along with experience in both SQL and NoSQL databases.

You will also be responsible for monitoring, logging, and observability, ensuring seamless performance using tools like New Relic, Datadog, and other observability stacks.

What you'll do

• Technical Leadership: Lead and mentor a team of engineers in designing, developing, and maintaining scalable backend systems.
• Backend Development: Build high-performance, secure, and scalable backend services using Node.js.
• API Development: Design and implement RESTful, ensuring best practices in API security and efficiency.
• Cloud Infrastructure: Manage and optimize deployments on AWS & GCP, including infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform/CDK.
• Event-Driven Architecture: Implement event-driven microservices using Pub/Sub, Kafka, SNS/SQS, or EventBridge.
• Database Management: Work with SQL (PostgreSQL/RDS) and NoSQL (MongoDB or Elasticsearch) databases, ensuring performance and scalability.
• Scalability & Performance: Design and implement strategies for high availability, auto-scaling, and load balancing in cloud environments.
• Security & Compliance: Enforce security best practices, manage IAM roles, and ensure compliance with industry standards.
• Automation & CI/CD: Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines for seamless deployment and integration.
• Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, frontend engineers, and DevOps teams to drive efficient development and deployment processes.

What we are looking for

Must-Have Skills:

• At least 5 to 8 years of relevant experience in technical development
• Strong proficiency in Node.js with frameworks like NestJS, Express.js
• Experience with AWS & GCP services (EC2, S3, Lambda, Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, IAM, VPC, etc.)
• Expertise in API development & integration (REST, GraphQL, WebSockets)
• Hands-on experience with event-driven architectures (SNS/SQS or Pub/Sub)
• Strong knowledge of SQL databases (PostgreSQL, RDS) and NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Elasticsearch)
• Experience in scaling microservices & optimizing system performance
• Proficiency in logging, monitoring, and observability tools (New Relic, Datadog, Prometheus, Loki, etc.)
• Strong understanding of containerization (Docker or Kubernetes or Cloud Run)
• Knowledge of security best practices, authentication mechanisms (JWT, oauth, SAML)

Good-to-Have Skills:

• Experience in serverless architecture (AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions)
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code (cloudFormation, Terraform, CDK, C)
• Knowledge of message queues (AWS SQS, GCP Pub/Sub, Kafka)
• Exposure to distributed tracing (Jaeger, OpenTelemetry)
• Hands-on experience with feature flagging & experimentation (LaunchDarkly)
• Background in high-volume transaction systems & fintech is a plus

What's in it for you

• Contribute to building the Middle East's most beloved fintech brand from the ground up
• Benefit from a role with significant ownership and accountability
• Thrive in a flexible hybrid culture with ample work-life balance
• Participate in exciting offsite events
• Competitive salary and equity
• Enjoy additional perks like travel allowances, gym memberships, and more