Engineering Lead, Backend Architecture

About OpenVPN Inc.

OpenVPN Inc. is the team behind OpenVPN, the industry-standard VPN protocol trusted by most commercial VPN providers worldwide. We are seeking a hands-on Engineering Lead, Backend Architecture to spearhead the development of critical security-related cloud services utilized daily by millions globally.

This role is perfect for a technically strong leader who thrives on shaping distributed systems at scale, empowering engineers, and integrating modern AI-assisted development practices to boost team productivity and quality.

Responsibilities

• Lead and manage a team of 7–10 backend engineers, ensuring clear ownership of delivery, quality, and sustainable execution.
• Drive practical, team-wide adoption of AI-assisted software development, embedding AI tools into daily workflows such as design, implementation, testing, code review, and incident analysis.
• Own and continuously evolve the architecture of large-scale, security-critical cloud services, comprising 70+ Java-based microservices.
• Act as the primary architectural decision-maker, balancing long-term maintainability, security, scalability, and delivery needs.
• Define and uphold engineering standards and best practices, including guidance on the effective and responsible use of AI tools.
• Support engineers through coaching, regular feedback, and mentorship, fostering a collaborative, psychologically safe, and high-performing team environment.
• Guide the design and development of web-based management APIs using JSON and REST.
• Collaborate closely with other teams and stakeholders on system design, integration, and deployment.
• Remain hands-on when necessary, focusing on architectural validation, complex problem-solving, and high-impact code reviews, rather than day-to-day feature delivery.
• Promote high standards in security, reliability, performance, and operational readiness across all owned systems.

Job Requirements

• 6+ years of commercial software development experience, including 5+ years of hands-on Java development.
• Proven experience in a technical leadership or people management role, leading a small to mid-sized engineering team.
• Strong experience designing and maintaining distributed, cloud-native systems in production environments.
• Practical, hands-on experience using AI coding assistants and LLM-based tools to improve development speed, code quality, or team efficiency.
• Experience introducing or standardizing AI-assisted development practices at the team level, with a focus on measurable productivity or quality improvements.
• Strong experience building modern REST services using Spring Boot.
• Hands-on experience with security-related technologies, including Spring Security (OAuth2, SAML).
• Solid understanding of TCP/IP networking, SSL/TLS, and VPN concepts.
• Experience working with MongoDB, Redis, and relational databases.
• Experience with Docker-based deployments, Kubernetes, and AWS infrastructure.
• Experience using the AWS SDK for Java.
• Experience with Java messaging systems (Kafka, SNS/SQS, etc.).
• Comfortable working in Linux-based development environments.
• Upper-intermediate or higher English, with the ability to communicate clearly about technical and architectural topics.
• Strong communication skills and a collaborative working style.

Nice to Have

• Experience with ClickHouse and other BigData solutions.
• Hands-on experience with Java sockets, WebSockets, or WebRTC.
• Experience in security domains such as PKI, encryption, X.509 certificates.
• Experience with performance testing tools (Gatling, JMeter).
• Open Source contributions, especially in networking, security, or Java ecosystems.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation.
• Fully remote work environment.
• Self-managed time off.
• Long-term cooperation via B2B contract.
• Work on globally recognized, security-critical products.
• A small team culture that values trust, ownership, and engineering excellence.

Key skills/competency

• Backend Architecture
• Java Development
• Distributed Systems
• Cloud Services (AWS)
• Technical Leadership
• AI-assisted Development
• Microservices
• Cybersecurity
• REST APIs
• Database Management (MongoDB, Redis)