Remote Engineering Team Lead

Summary

Join Upwork's Engineering team as an Engineering Lead to manage a team of highly skilled engineers, collaborate across teams, and deliver top-tier products to users. As an Engineering Lead, you will guide the technical direction of projects, maintain quality standards, and cultivate a team culture that drives innovation and continuous improvement.

Requirements

• Professional Experience : 8+ years in software development, with a proven track record of delivering complex projects from ideation to launch
• Leadership : Experience leading engineering teams, driving execution, and ensuring high-quality output
• Technical Expertise: Deep understanding of software development life cycle principles and agile practices
• Expertise in designing and maintaining distributed backend systems, scalable solutions , and microservice architectures using modern JVM languages such as Java or Kotlin
• Proven ability to address scalability challenges and build high-load web applications
• Collaborative Skills: Demonstrated success working with cross-functional teams to deliver impactful products
• Strong interpersonal skills and experience collaborating with multiple stakeholders
• Excellent communication skills in English, both written and verbal

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Engineering, Product Management, and Design teams to ensure timely delivery of high-quality solutions
• Provide leadership and mentorship to a team of software engineers, with a strong emphasis on quality, innovation, and customer-centricity
• Translate the broader business vision and technical challenges into clear, actionable plans, balancing trade-offs where needed
• Identify and mitigate technical risks, and proactively communicate them to stakeholders
• Foster a culture of curiosity, growth, and excellence, encouraging continuous improvement and experimentation
• Lead regular team meetings to assess output, address concerns, and enhance team communication
• Provide regular updates to senior leadership and key stakeholders, ensuring transparency around progress and challenges while advocating for the engineering team’s needs
• Manage your time independently to achieve deliverables, committing approximately 40 hours per week
• Coordinate with the team during core hours ( 8:00 to 11:00 am PT ), with occasional availability until 12:00 pm PT for critical matters

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong coaching and mentoring abilities to guide team development and growth
• Embraces feedback and champions a culture of continuous improvement
• A growth mindset , with curiosity driving innovation and learning within the team
• A proven track record of managing high performing teams building highly scalable and reliable systems
• Experience working across cross functional teams and partners