Lead Engineer

Backed by leading investors including The Raine Group, Flexpoint Ford, Nyca Partners, Viola Ventures, and Roc Nation, Duetti has raised over $635 million in capital to fund independent music creators. Fueled by a belief in independence and financial empowerment, Duetti is building a more sustainable future for music creators everywhere.

With offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, and London, Duetti offers a competitive benefits package, including healthcare coverage, flexible paid time off, and a hybrid work model. Duetti provides an ambitious, high-ownership environment where your work will have an immediate, tangible impact. 

We are looking for a Lead Engineer to help scale both our engineering organization and the platforms that power Duetti.

This is a highly visible leadership position that combines technical execution, team leadership, operational excellence, and cross functional collaboration.

You will remain a hands-on contributor while also helping lead a growing backend engineering team. You will work closely with the Head of Engineering, Product, Data, Research, and business stakeholders to ensure the successful delivery of critical initiatives across the company.

The ideal candidate is a strong technical leader who enjoys solving difficult engineering problems, developing engineers, improving processes, and driving execution. You understand how to balance engineering quality with business needs, can navigate ambiguity, and know how to align teams around shared objectives.

This role is ideal for someone who wants to have a direct impact on both the technology and the growth of the engineering organization.

You Will:

Lead Engineering Execution

Own delivery of critical engineering initiatives across multiple product areas.

Translate high level business objectives into clear engineering plans and milestones.

Partner closely with Product and Engineering leadership to define technical priorities.

Help ensure projects are delivered on time and with a high standard of quality.

Proactively identify risks, dependencies, and execution challenges before they impact delivery.

Remain a Strong Individual Contributor

Actively contribute to architecture, design, implementation, and code reviews.

Build scalable services and platform capabilities.

Participate in debugging, troubleshooting, and production support.

Lead complex technical initiatives and serve as a technical resource for the broader team.

Establish and promote engineering best practices across the organization.

Grow and Develop the Team

Help recruit, interview, and onboard engineers.

Mentor engineers through technical guidance and career development.

Create an environment focused on accountability, collaboration, learning, and execution.

Help define responsibilities, expectations, and growth paths for team members.

Lead by example through both technical excellence and professionalism.

Improve Engineering Processes

Establish consistent engineering standards and development practices.

Improve sprint planning, estimation, prioritization, and release management processes.

Help create scalable operating procedures as the team continues to grow.

Drive improvements around testing, code quality, observability, documentation, and reliability.

Ensure alignment across engineers, teams, and initiatives.

Partner Across the Business

Work closely with Product Managers to refine requirements and scope initiatives.

Communicate project status, risks, and trade-offs to leadership.

Collaborate with Data, Research, Operations, and other business teams to understand needs and deliver solutions.

Help balance short-term business objectives with long-term platform investments.

Contribute to Organizational Planning

Partner with the Head of Engineering on roadmap planning and resource allocation.

Help establish team OKRs and measurable success criteria.

Track execution against goals and identify opportunities for improvement.

Participate in defining the future structure and growth of the engineering organization.

Requirements:

Experience

5+ years of professional software engineering experience.

1+ years leading or managing engineering teams.

Experience operating in high-growth startup environments, ideally Series B, C, or D companies.

Experience building and maintaining production systems at scale.

Demonstrated success leading engineering projects from planning through delivery.

Technical Skills

Expert level backend development experience using Python.

Strong experience designing APIs and distributed systems.

Deep understanding of cloud native architectures and AWS services.

Experience with Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform, CI/CD, and modern infrastructure practices.

Strong understanding of system design, scalability, reliability, security, and performance optimization.

Experience working with relational databases and data intensive systems.

Leadership

Proven ability to lead technical teams while remaining hands on.

Ability to build trust and alignment across teams.

Comfortable making decisions and driving accountability.

Leads through influence, collaboration, and example.

Communication

Exceptional communication skills.

Ability to explain complex technical concepts in a concise and structured manner.

Comfortable communicating with executives, engineers, product managers, and non technical stakeholders.

Strong written communication and documentation skills.

Problem Solving

Highly organized and execution oriented.

Able to break large initiatives into manageable milestones.

Strong prioritization skills and business judgment.

Focused on finding solutions rather than simply identifying problems.

Comfortable balancing speed, quality, and long-term maintainability.