Team Lead Backend Engineer

You will lead the technical strategy and architecture for authentication, authorization, and session management at scale. You will design OAuth and OIDC flows, strengthen web-security controls, guide Ory and CockroachDB decisions, and lead a zero-downtime identity migration. You will review security-critical code, resolve systemic risks, contribute to critical security features, manage and mentor engineers, and coordinate roadmap delivery with dependent product teams.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical strategy and architecture for authentication, authorization, and session management
• Design and evolve OAuth 2.0 and OIDC flows, token lifecycles, and security primitives
• Lead decisions on Ory, custom authentication methods, and Auth API orchestration
• Own cookie security, CSRF and XSS protection, token storage, TLS, and session management
• Drive CockroachDB strategy for geo-distributed data residency
• Review security-critical code and enforce best practices
• Drive zero-downtime migration from legacy Xsolla Login with bidirectional identity synchronization
• Identify and resolve systemic risks and performance bottlenecks
• Make system-design, security-architecture, and technology decisions
• Contribute hands-on to critical security features
• Lead and mentor up to eight backend engineers
• Conduct 1:1s, performance reviews, and career-development conversations
• Hire and onboard engineers with IAM and security expertise
• Manage workload and delivery commitments
• Own delivery predictability for the platform
• Collaborate with Product on IAM roadmap and priorities
• Coordinate with dependent product teams
• Report security posture, platform reliability, and team progress

Requirements

• 5+ years of commercial Go experience, or 7+ years in other backend languages with Go proficiency
• Expertise in OAuth 2.0, OIDC, and IAM systems
• Knowledge of authorization code with PKCE, client credentials, device flow, token introspection, and refresh strategies
• Understanding of JWT, token refresh flows, and session management
• Knowledge of password hashing and secure storage
• Knowledge of cookie security, CSRF, XSS, TLS, and secure session management
• Knowledge of MySQL, PostgreSQL, and Redis
• Experience with distributed-system trade-offs
• Experience designing highly available systems
• Understanding of security best practices and OWASP vulnerabilities
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, and production deployments
• 2+ years of engineering-team leadership experience
• Experience delivering mission-critical infrastructure
• Ability to lead multi-quarter cross-team technical initiatives
• Experience with security-focused code review
• Written and verbal communication skills
• Ability to balance security requirements and delivery timelines