Tech Lead , Functional Life Sciences Domain

A BIT ABOUT US

Appknox is one of the top Mobile Application security companies recognized by Gartner and G2. A profitable B2B SaaS startup headquartered in Singapore & working from Bengaluru.

The primary goal of Appknox is to help businesses and mobile developers secure their mobile applications with a focus on delivery speed and high-quality security audits.

Our business includes Fortune 500 companies with Major brands spread across regions like India, South-East Asia, Middle-East, Japan, US, and expanding rapidly. 

The Opportunity:

We are seeking a highly skilled Senior Software Engineer (Backend) to join our dynamic software development team. In this role, you will contribute to key backend projects, collaborate across teams, and play a vital part in delivering robust, scalable, and high-performance software solutions. As a senior engineer, you will work independently, make impactful technical decisions, and help shape the backend architecture while collaborating with a passionate, high-performing team.

You will work hands-on with products primarily built in Python, with opportunities to contribute to Golang. These technologies are at the core of our development stack, and your focus will be on building, scaling, and maintaining distributed services. Distributed systems are integral to our architecture, providing a chance to gain hands-on experience with maintaining and optimizing them in a fast-paced environment.

As a Senior Engineer, you are expected to:

• Write clean, maintainable, and testable code while following best practices.
• Architect solutions, address complex problems, and deliver well-thought-out technical designs.
• Take ownership of assigned modules and features, delivering them with minimal supervision.
• Contribute to code reviews and technical discussions, ensuring high-quality deliverables.

We highly value open source contributions and encourage you to check out our work on GitHub at Appknox GitHub. While no prior experience in security is required, our experienced security professionals are available to support you in understanding the domain.

This role offers a unique opportunity to work on cutting-edge technology, drive impactful solutions, and grow within a collaborative environment that values autonomy, innovation, and technical excellence.

Responsibilities:

• Contribute to backend development for a cutting-edge product in the Security domain, with focus on performance, reliability, and maintainability.
• Implement software components and features based on high-level architectural guidance using Django and Django REST Framework (DRF).
• Collaborate with senior engineers to translate functional and technical requirements into robust backend implementations.
• Write clean, modular, and testable code following industry best practices and team standards.
• Participate in design discussions and code reviews to maintain code quality and continuously learn from peers.
• Work closely with frontend, QA, and security teams to deliver well-integrated, end-to-end solutions.
• Troubleshoot, debug, and resolve issues in existing systems, ensuring stability and efficiency.
• Contribute to the creation of technical documentation for components and modules you build or maintain.
• Follow defined verification plans and contribute to improving test coverage and automation.
• Participate in sprint planning, estimations, and agile ceremonies to support timely and effective project delivery.
• Proactively seek feedback and continuously improve your technical skills and understanding of system architecture.
• Support team success by collaborating effectively, sharing knowledge, and guiding junior team members when needed.

Requirements:

• Solid hands-on experience with Django and Django REST Framework 3-4 years
• Good understanding of relational databases, SQL, and working with ORMs such as Django ORM.
• Ability to contribute to design discussions and implement well-structured, maintainable backend systems.
• Exposure to writing unit and integration tests; familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and version control systems
• Proficiency in debugging, performance optimization, and addressing scalability concerns under guidance.
• Strong fundamentals in data structures, algorithms, and clean coding practices.
• Able to collaborate effectively within a team and take ownership of moderately complex modules.
• Good communication skills, with the ability to document and explain solutions to peers.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms and microservices architecture is a plus.
• Self-driven with a growth mindset and willingness to learn from peers and feedback.

Work Expectations:

Within 1 month-

• Attend KT sessions conducted by the engineering and product teams to gain a deep understanding of the product, its architecture, and workflows.
• Learn about the team's development processes, tools, and key challenges.
• Work closely with the product team to understand product requirements and contribute to the design and development of features.
• Dive deep into the existing backend architecture, including database structures, APIs, and integration points, to fully understand the technical landscape
• Begin addressing minor technical challenges and bugs, while understanding the underlying architecture and tech stack.
• Begin to participate in creating action plans for new features, ensuring that design and implementation are aligned with product goals.

Within 3 months-

• Achieve full autonomy in working on the codebase, demonstrating the ability to independently deliver high-quality features from design to deployment.
• Take complete ownership of critical modules, ensuring they are optimized for performance and maintainability.
• Act as a technical resource for the team, offering support and guidance to peers on complex issues.
• Collaborate with DevOps to optimize deployment pipelines, debug production issues, and improve backend infrastructure.
• Lead discussions for technical solutions and provide recommendations for architectural improvements.
• Contribute to the design of new features by translating functional requirements into detailed technical specifications.
• Prepare regular updates on assigned tasks and communicate effectively with the engineering manager and other stakeholders.

Within 6 months-

• Be fully independent in their development tasks, contributing to key features and solving critical challenges.
• Demonstrate strong problem-solving skills and the ability to take ownership of technical modules.
• Actively participate in code reviews and technical discussions, ensuring high-quality deliverables.
• Collaborate seamlessly with cross-functional teams to align technical solutions with business requirements.
• Establish themselves as a reliable and proactive team member, contributing to the team’s growth and success.

Personality traits we really admire:

• Great attitude to ask questions, learn and suggest process improvements.
• Has attention to details and helps identify edge cases.
• Proactive mindset. 
• Highly motivated and coming up with ideas and perspective to help us move towards our goals faster.
• Follows timelines and absolute commitment to deadlines.

Interview Process 

• Round 1 Interview - Profile Evaluation (EM)
• Round 2 Interview - Assignment Evaluation & Technical Problem Solving discussion (Tech Team)
• Round 4 Interview - Engineering Team & Technical Founder (CTO)
• Round 5 Interview - HR

Compensation

• Best in industry

We prefer that every employee also holds equity in the company. In this role, you will be awarded equity after 12 months, based on the impact you have created.

Please be aware that all your customers are Enterprises and Fortune 500 companies.

Why Join Us:

• Freedom & Responsibility: If you are a person who enjoys challenging work & pushing your boundaries, then this is the right place for you. We appreciate new ideas & ownership as well as flexibility with working hours.
• Great Salary & Equity: We keep up with the market standards & provide pay packages considering updated standards. Also as Appknox continues to grow, you’ll have a great opportunity to earn more & grow with us. Moreover, we also provide equity options for our top performers.
• Holistic Growth: We foster a culture of continuous learning and take a much more holistic approach to training and developing our assets: the employees. We shall also support you all on that journey of yours.
• Transparency: Being a part of a start-up is an amazing experience one of the reasons being the open communication & transparency at multiple levels. Working with Appknox will give you the opportunity to experience it all first hand.
• Health insurance: We offer health insurance coverage upto 5 Lacs for you and your family including parents.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or equivalent experience is required
• A minimum of 8-10 years of experience working in an IT environment
• At least 6-8 years of experience as a developer.
• Experience leading complex projects/tasks
• Strong hands-on experience with a variety of code, interface, API, and database concepts
• Experience in full project life cycle development for systems and applications
• Experience integrating and customizing business applications
• Excellent oral and written communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with team members at all levels, from junior developers to senior managers and business customers
• A strong desire to learn the latest technologies and the ability to acquire knowledge quickly
• Exceptional problem-solving and debugging skills

Technical Knowledge & Skills

• Proficiency in programming languages such as JavaScript, .NET, C#, Java, PHP, PowerShell, and Regex
• Experience with ERP, HRIS, and CRM and Case Management systems
• Experience with ServiceNow (SNOW) glide extensions and JavaScript
• Experience with Microsoft SharePoint
• Proficiency in web services, Rest APIs, string manipulation, SQL, and creating stored procedures using XML/JSON and SOAP/REST protocols
• Experience with integrations using tools such as Power Automate, UiPath, MuleSoft, and IBM App Connect
• Possess knowledge of DBA tasks, including deployments, maintenance planning, string manipulation, and authoring SQL statements
• Experience using Source Code and Version Control Systems like Git
• Experience in cloud base deployment of applications
• Windows OS

• 3+ years of Experience in software Design and development and familiar with technologies - Java, Java-J2EE, Spring Boot, Hibernate, Ajax, REST API, Micro services etc.
• Working knowledge of JVM internals
• Working knowledge of any database (MySQL or HSQLDB)
• Working knowledge of No-SQL database (Mongo or Dynamo DB)
• Working experience with messaging (JMS/RabbitMQ)
• R & D on new advanced cloud-based technologies in a test-driven agile development.
• Knowledge in designing and architecting systems with high scalability and performance requirements.
• Ability to understand infrastructure for performance evaluation and reporting of cloud-based services, namely AWS
• knowledge of key AWS services like EC2, S3, Lambda, CloudWatch etc.
• Certification on AWS Fundamendals
• Excellent communication skills
• ability to effectively articulate technical challenges and solutions
• skilled in interfacing with internal and external technical resources
• Good in debugging problems and mentoring teams on technical front

Roles & Responsibilities

As a member of our fast-growing engineering team, your responsibility will be to get involved in day-to-day development operations and solve complex problems of digitization to meet the demands of business.

To be successful, you must have a self-driven mindset, go getter attitude.

The responsibilities include:

• Writing the clean quality code & Understanding functional requirements thoroughly and analyzing the requirements in the context of the product
• Envisioning the overall solution for defined functional and non-functional requirements, and being able to define technologies, patterns and frameworks
• Determining and implementing design methodologies and tool sets
• Enabling application development by coordinating requirements, schedules, and activities
• Being able to lead/support UAT and production roll outs
• Creating, understanding and validating estimated effort for given module/task, and being able to justify it
• Addressing issues promptly, responding positively to setbacks and challenges with a mindset of continuous improvement
• Giving constructive feedback to the team members and setting clear expectations
• Helping the team in troubleshooting and resolving complex bugs
• Coming up with solutions to any issue that is raised during code/design review and being able to justify the decision taken
• Carrying out POCs to make sure that suggested design/technologies meet the requirements
• Carrying out DevOps activities which includes creating Jenkins pipeline

Key Skills

Should possess hands-on full life-cycle development experience (architect, design, code, test, release) be comfortable around both front-end and back-end coding languages, client/server-side development frameworks and third-party libraries.

• Should be strong in data structures and algorithms. Solid understanding of object-oriented programming
• Work with cutting edge technologies like Java 8, Scala, React, Akka, Docker, Puppet, and Salt
• Hands-on knowledge of Spring core, MVC, JPA. Working knowledge of Spring Boot
• Should have strong hands-on on one of the JavaScript frameworks: jQuery, AngularJS, ReactJS, and Vue.js.
• Willing to working with latest Cloud and Container technologies like AWS
• Experience with both external and embedded databases. NoSQL DB experience is good to have
• Implementing unit testing using frameworks like JUnit, Mockito, etc.
• Proficient understanding of code versioning tools, such as Git
• Familiarity with Maven (Other building tools Ant and Gradle are good to have)
• Familiarity with continuous integration
• Good understanding of Agile practices

Role – Technical Architect

ZipLoan is looking out for a strong technology leader of Software Product Engineering, with a Technical Experience of about 12+ years, and hands-on experience in Software Product Development and ownership. You will head our Platform team which will be tasked with building ZipLoan's platform layer along with a set of engineers reporting to you.

Role:

1. Understand the business end-to-end in order to drive a use-case driven architecture.
2. Identify parts of the code-base which can be made reusable as modules or services.
3. Propose architecture improvements to provide reliability and robustness at scale.
4. Provide a roadmap for evolution of the technology ecosystem.
5. Identify and erase technical debt.
6. Provide consultancy to engineering teams on specific design challenges.
7. Propose engineering best practices and help teams in adopting them.

1. 12 years min experience in core software development.
2. Hands-on experience building consumer Web/mobile apps at scale.
3. Strong exposure to open-source technology – Python and other languages,

Linux, SQL and NoSQL databases, Web development frameworks

1. Strong architecture skills.
2. Ability to mentor engineering team members effectively.
3. Preferably a strong full-stack engineer or at least strong backend skills with some front-end skill.