Job Title: Engineering Manager / Principal Engineer MERN Stack
Location: Pune
Experience: 10+ Years
Role Overview
We are looking for a high-caliber Engineering Manager / Principal Engineer with deep expertise in the MERN stack who can drive technical architecture, hands-on development, and team leadership. This role is ideal for someone who leads from the front actively coding, solving complex problems, and guiding teams to deliver scalable, high-performance web applications.
Key Responsibilities
1. Technical Leadership & Hands-on Development
- Architect and build scalable full-stack applications using MongoDB, Express.js, React.js, and Node.js
- Stay actively involved in hands-on coding, especially in critical modules and system components
- Drive engineering best practices across code quality, performance, security, and scalability
- Solve complex technical challenges and guide teams on implementation strategies
2. System Design & Architecture
- Design high-performance, scalable, and resilient web applications
- Define and enforce frontend and backend architecture standards
- Lead design discussions and ensure alignment with long-term platform vision
- Optimize applications for high concurrency, low latency, and responsiveness
3. Team Leadership
- Lead a team of full-stack/backend/frontend engineers
- Conduct code reviews, design reviews, and technical mentoring
- Establish engineering standards and ensure adherence across teams
- Drive a culture of ownership, accountability, and engineering excellence
4. Delivery Ownership
- Own end-to-end delivery of features and modules
- Define sprint goals, plan releases, and ensure timely execution
- Identify risks, bottlenecks, and dependencies proactively
- Ensure delivery quality aligned with business and client expectations
5. DevOps & Cloud
- Work closely with DevOps teams on CI/CD pipelines and deployment strategies
- Ensure proper monitoring, logging, and application performance tracking
- Contribute to cloud-native architecture on AWS / GCP / Azure
- Drive containerization using Docker and orchestration via Kubernetes (preferred)
6. Stakeholder Collaboration
- Collaborate with product managers, clients, and cross-functional teams
- Translate business requirements into scalable technical solutions
- Provide regular updates, architectural insights, and recommendations
Required Skills & Qualifications
- Strong hands-on expertise in Node.js, Express.js, React.js, and MongoDB (MERN stack)
- Proven experience designing and building scalable distributed web applications
- Strong experience with REST APIs, GraphQL, and microservices architecture
- Expertise in frontend performance optimization and state management (Redux/Context API)
- Experience leading engineering teams while staying hands-on
- Strong understanding of system design, scalability, and performance tuning
- Experience with real-time/event-driven systems (Kafka, WebSockets, etc.)
- Familiarity with CI/CD tools (Jenkins, GitLab CI, etc.)
- Strong problem-solving and debugging skills
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience with micro-frontend architecture
- Hands-on experience with Docker & Kubernetes
- Exposure to high-traffic, consumer-scale applications
- Understanding of security best practices (OWASP, authentication, authorization)
- Experience with serverless architecture (Lambda, Firebase, etc.)
Experience Requirements
- 10+ years of overall software development experience
- Proven experience leading engineering teams (38 members or more)
- Strong track record of recent hands-on technical contributions (must-have)
Key Competencies
- Leadership with a hands-on mindset
- Strong ownership and accountability
- High-performance system thinking
- Ability to balance delivery and technical excellence
Strong communication and stakeholder management
