Website:
theshiftai.in
Job details:
1. About the Role
We are looking for a hands-on Technical Lead who combines strong software engineering expertise with Agile delivery leadership.
This role is designed for an experienced engineer who enjoys building software, guiding developers, solving technical challenges, and driving delivery through Agile methodologies.
The ideal candidate will act as a technical leader for the engineering team while taking responsibility for Scrum ceremonies, sprint planning, backlog refinement, delivery tracking, and continuous improvement.
This is not a purely managerial role. The candidate is expected to remain actively involved in technical design, architecture discussions, code reviews, debugging, and development whenever required.
2. Key ResponsibilitiesA. Technical Leadership & Engineering
- Lead the technical design, development, and delivery of software applications and platforms.
- Translate product requirements and business objectives into technical designs, development tasks, and implementation plans.
- Guide developers on architecture, coding standards, design patterns, and engineering best practices.
- Participate in hands-on development, particularly for critical features, complex components, and technical challenges.
- Conduct code reviews and ensure code quality, maintainability, scalability, security, and performance.
- Identify technical risks, dependencies, bottlenecks, and architectural challenges early in the development lifecycle.
- Make pragmatic technology and implementation decisions in collaboration with the CTO or engineering leadership.
- Mentor developers and help improve their technical capabilities and engineering practices.
- Drive continuous improvement in development workflows, CI/CD pipelines, testing, and release processes.
B. Agile Delivery & Scrum Master Responsibilities
- Facilitate Agile Scrum ceremonies, including:
- Sprint planning.
- Daily stand-ups.
- Sprint reviews and demonstrations.
- Sprint retrospectives.
- Backlog refinement sessions.
- Work with the Product Owner to refine user stories, define acceptance criteria, and ensure the backlog is ready for development.
- Break down epics and features into manageable technical tasks and user stories.
- Help the team estimate effort using story points and maintain a sustainable delivery velocity.
- Track sprint progress, identify deviations, and proactively address delivery risks.
- Remove impediments by coordinating with product, engineering, DevOps, QA, and other stakeholders.
- Ensure that sprint commitments are realistic and aligned with team capacity.
- Maintain visibility into sprint health, dependencies, blockers, and delivery milestones.
- Promote Agile principles, team collaboration, accountability, and continuous improvement.
C. Team Coordination & Stakeholder Management
- Act as the primary technical point of contact for the development team.
- Coordinate with product managers, business analysts, QA engineers, DevOps engineers, and other stakeholders.
- Communicate technical progress, risks, dependencies, and delivery status to engineering leadership.
- Facilitate technical discussions and help resolve disagreements constructively.
- Ensure developers understand business priorities and the expected outcomes of their work.
- Support release planning, production deployments, and post-release issue resolution.
- Encourage a culture of ownership, collaboration, engineering excellence, and continuous learning.
3. Required Technical Skills
Candidates should have strong experience in software engineering and hands-on development.
- Strong programming experience in at least one modern programming language, such as Java, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, C#, or Go.
- Solid understanding of software architecture, object-oriented programming, design patterns, APIs, databases, and distributed systems.
- Experience designing and developing scalable, maintainable applications.
- Experience with REST APIs, microservices, application integration, and database design.
- Familiarity with Git-based development workflows, CI/CD, automated testing, and code review practices.
- Experience working with cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or GCP.
- Ability to troubleshoot complex technical issues and guide developers through debugging and root-cause analysis.
- Experience with modern development practices, including code quality, automated testing, and secure software development.
4. Agile & Project Delivery Skills
- Strong working knowledge of Agile methodologies, particularly Scrum and Kanban.
- Experience serving as a Scrum Master, Technical Lead, or Agile delivery lead.
- Practical experience managing sprint planning, story estimation, backlog refinement, retrospectives, and sprint reviews.
- Experience using Azure DevOps, Jira, or similar tools for backlog management, sprint tracking, and delivery reporting.
- Ability to manage dependencies, identify delivery risks, and facilitate timely resolution of blockers.
- Understanding of velocity, burndown charts, cycle time, lead time, and other Agile delivery metrics.
- Ability to balance delivery commitments with technical quality and sustainable engineering practices.
5. Leadership & Collaboration
- Strong technical problem-solving and decision-making skills.
- Ability to lead through technical credibility, collaboration, and mentorship rather than relying on hierarchical authority.
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills.
- Ability to coordinate a team of developers while remaining actively involved in engineering work.
- Strong ownership and accountability for technical outcomes and delivery commitments.
- Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, evolving product development environment.
- A continuous improvement mindset with a focus on engineering productivity and product quality.
6. What Success Looks Like
The successful candidate will:
- Enable the engineering team to deliver high-quality software predictably and consistently.
- Maintain strong engineering standards through architecture guidance, code reviews, testing, and technical mentorship.
- Ensure effective sprint execution, with clear priorities, realistic commitments, and visibility into progress.
- Identify and resolve technical and delivery bottlenecks before they significantly affect timelines.
- Improve collaboration between engineering, product, QA, and other stakeholders.
- Help developers become more independent, productive, and accountable.
- Balance feature delivery with technical debt reduction, reliability, and maintainability.
7. Preferred Qualifications
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
- Experience leading a team of approximately 4–10 software engineers.
- Previous experience as a Senior Software Engineer, Technical Lead, Lead Developer, or hands-on Scrum Master.
- Scrum Master certification such as PSM I, CSM, or equivalent is desirable but not mandatory.
- Experience working in product engineering, SaaS, enterprise applications, or cloud-native environments.
- Experience working with distributed or cross-functional teams.
8. Ideal Candidate Profile
We are looking for someone who can confidently switch between three modes:
Engineer: Design solutions, review code, troubleshoot issues, and contribute to development.
Technical Leader: Guide developers, make technical decisions, establish engineering standards, and mentor the team.
Scrum Master: Facilitate Agile ceremonies, manage sprint execution, remove blockers, and improve delivery predictability.
The ideal candidate enjoys being close to the code while taking ownership of the team's technical execution and delivery outcomes.
If you are a strong engineer who enjoys leading teams and improving how software gets delivered, this role is for you.
Click on Apply to know more.
