Staff Software Engineer — Tech Lead, Backend

We are looking for a Tech Lead who leads through technical excellence, not management authority. You will define backend architecture, elevate the engineering team in Beijing, and drive Conviva's AI-native platform evolution. 

Join us at the frontier of the agent analytics revolution, where we are defining the future of AI-native platforms. We offer a high-impact role where strategy meets technical craft, empowering you to shape our architecture while leveraging an AI-first development culture. This is a rare opportunity to join a team that prioritizes building and moving fast, backed by competitive compensation, equity, and comprehensive benefits.

What Success Looks Like

• Own architecture for Conviva's high-scale, real-time data platform.
• Lead design reviews and drive key decisions on distributed systems, OLAP, and streaming infrastructure (ClickHouse, Kafka, Druid).
• This role operates in an AI-assisted engineering environment. We expect active, fluent use of AI coding and agentic tools as part of normal engineering workflow — not as a productivity bonus, but as a baseline. Use AI coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot) as a standard part of your workflow — for prototyping, code review acceleration, design exploration, and technical documentation. 
• Integrate AI/agentic capabilities: LLM pipelines, agent observability, intelligent data modeling.
• Mentor engineers through code reviews, design pairing, and knowledge sharing.
• Set the technical bar—your code, architecture decisions, and engineering habits are what others build toward.
• Identify and grow future tech leads; champion code quality, testing, and CI/CD discipline.
• Partner with Product and cross-regional engineering teams to translate business needs into scalable solutions.
• Drive end-to-end delivery: design → development → testing → production monitoring.
• Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to senior stakeholders in English.

Who You Are

• BS in Computer Science or equivalent; MS/PhD a plus.
• 8+ years of software engineering, with 5+ years in data platforms or high-scale backend systems.
• Hands-on experience with big data platform stacks, including but not limited to Spark, ClickHouse, Druid, and Kafka.
• Demonstrated understanding and practical experience with AI Agent systems, including LLM pipelines, agent observability, or intelligent data modeling.
• Leads through technical influence—trusted for solving hard problems, not for holding a title.
• Track record of mentoring engineers and making them measurably more competitive.
• Proficient in either of the programming languages: Python, Go, Java, Scala, or Rust.
• Actively uses AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) in daily engineering work.
• Thrives in ambiguity; communicates clearly across distributed teams in multiple time zones.
• Excellent English communication skills, both verbal and written.

Bonus Points

• Experience with LLM application backends, agentic systems, RAG, or LLM-ops tooling.
• Familiarity with agent frameworks (LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI) and production deployment patterns.