Lead/Staff Backend Engineer

As a Lead/Staff Backend Engineer at Gorilla, key responsibilities include leading architectural decisions, driving cross-functional technical initiatives, mentoring other engineers, and designing distributed systems for large volumes of energy data. You'll focus on ensuring reliability and performance in our high-load environments while collaborating closely with product teams to align technical and strategic goals.

Gorilla is looking for candidates with expertise in Python and modern software design patterns, as well as extensive experience with relational databases and data modeling. You'll need a deep understanding of distributed systems, a proven background in data-intensive backends, and familiarity with cloud platforms like AWS. Strong communication skills and leadership experience are also essential for this role.

A typical workday for a Lead/Staff Backend Engineer at Gorilla includes hands-on development, strategic planning, and collaboration sessions with Product Managers and other engineers. You'll review designs, set architectural standards, mentor teammates, and participate in defining the long-term technical vision, all while balancing day-to-day engineering tasks with big-picture contributions.

Collaboration at Gorilla involves working closely with Product Managers, Designers, and other engineers to drive technical initiatives. You'll participate in cross-functional teams, engaging in design reviews, pair programming, and knowledge sharing to foster a culture of technical excellence and ensure that engineering practices align across all disciplines.

At Gorilla, Lead/Staff Backend Engineers have ample opportunities for growth through mentorship roles, leading initiatives, and shaping engineering practices. You'll also have the chance to influence technical direction, contributing to strategic planning and driving clarity in complex technical situations, while developing your leadership skills within an innovative environment.

When answering this question, provide specific examples of projects where you implemented distributed systems. Highlight your understanding of trade-offs related to consistency, availability, and partition tolerance, ensuring you convey how these decisions impacted performance and scalability.

Discuss your approach to architectural decisions, including the frameworks and tools you favor for load balancing and scaling. Talk about how you monitor system performance and your strategies for maintaining reliability during high-load scenarios.

Share examples of how you've mentored junior engineers, such as through pair programming sessions, code reviews, or leading workshops. Emphasize your approach to fostering a culture of continuous learning and technical growth among your team.

Express your method for addressing ambiguity by breaking down complex problems into manageable parts. Talk about collaborating with team members and leveraging resources to gather insights, as well as making informed decisions to drive clarity.

Share your familiarity with AWS services relevant to backend engineering, such as EC2, RDS, and container orchestration tools. Discuss how you've deployed and managed applications in cloud environments, emphasizing your understanding of infrastructure-as-code.

Choose a project that showcases your problem-solving skills, detailing the challenges you faced, the solutions you implemented, and the impact on the business. Highlight any collaboration with cross-functional teams to demonstrate your ability to work effectively with others.

Discuss the techniques you apply for identifying bottlenecks, such as profiling and load testing. Explain the methods you use to enhance performance, focusing on database optimization, caching strategies, and code refactoring to improve script efficiency.

Highlight key principles of API design that you adhere to, such as RESTful conventions, versioning, and documentation standards. Discuss how you ensure APIs are user-friendly and scalable, possibly sharing examples from past projects.

Emphasize your knowledge of DevOps principles and practices, detailing your experience in automating deployment pipelines and creating monitoring solutions. Explain how this experience enables you to build more reliable systems and streamline development processes.

Discuss your approach to prioritization, emphasizing how you assess the impact and urgency of tasks. Explain how you communicate priorities with your team, ensure alignment, and adapt to change while maintaining focus on key objectives.