About Alaan

We are an AI-powered expense management platform designed to simplify finance for businesses in the Middle East, helping them save both time and money. Our platform offers everything businesses need to manage and control their expenses in one place, including smart corporate cards, AI-powered automation and insights, streamlined accounting, and centralized dashboards.

Since 2022, over 1000 businesses in the UAE—from startups to enterprises like Al Barari, Rove, Rivoli, Punjab National Bank, and CarSwitch—have used Alaan to control their spending and reduce costs. Together, our customers have saved over AED 100 million using Alaan.

About the role

We are looking for a Tech Lead / Platform Engineer to design, build, and optimize our platform architecture. You will play a key role in leading the backend team, ensuring high availability, scalability, and performance of our services. The ideal candidate has deep expertise in Node.js, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP), APIs, and event-driven architectures, along with experience in both SQL and NoSQL databases.

You will also be responsible for monitoring, logging, and observability, ensuring seamless performance using tools like New Relic, Datadog, and other observability stacks.

What you'll do

• Technical Leadership: Lead and mentor a team of engineers in designing, developing, and maintaining scalable backend systems.
• Backend Development: Build high-performance, secure, and scalable backend services using Node.js.
• API Development: Design and implement RESTful, ensuring best practices in API security and efficiency
• Cloud Infrastructure: Manage and optimize deployments on AWS & GCP, including infrastructure as code (IaC) using Terraform/CDK.
• Event-Driven Architecture: Implement event-driven microservices using Pub/Sub, Kafka, SNS/SQS, or EventBridge.
• Database Management: Work with SQL (PostgreSQL/RDS) and NoSQL (MongoDB, Elasticsearch) databases, ensuring performance and scalability.
• Observability & Monitoring: Implement logging, monitoring, and alerting solutions using New Relic, Datadog, Prometheus, or similar tools.
• Scalability & Performance: Design and implement strategies for high availability, auto-scaling, and load balancing in cloud environments.
• Security & Compliance: Enforce security best practices, manage IAM roles, and ensure compliance with industry standards.
• Automation & CI/CD: Develop and maintain CI/CD pipelines for seamless deployment and integration
• Collaboration: Work closely with product managers, frontend engineers, and DevOps teams to drive efficient development and deployment processes.

What we are looking for

Must-Have Skills:

• Strong proficiency in Node.js with frameworks like NestJS, Express.js
• Experience with AWS & GCP services (EC2, S3, Lambda, Cloud Run, Pub/Sub, IAM, VPC, etc.)
• Expertise in API development & integration (REST, GraphQL, WebSockets)
• Hands-on experience with event-driven architectures (Kafka, SNS/SQS, EventBridge, Pub/Sub)
• Strong knowledge of SQL databases (PostgreSQL, RDS) and NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Elasticsearch)
• Experience in scaling microservices & optimizing system performance
• Proficiency in logging, monitoring, and observability tools (New Relic, Datadog, Prometheus, Loki, etc.)
• Strong understanding of containerization (Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud Run)
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code (cloudFormation,Terraform, CDK, C)
• Knowledge of security best practices, authentication mechanisms (JWT, oauth, SAML), and IAM policies

Good-to-Have Skills:

• Experience in serverless architecture (AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions)
• Knowledge of message queues (AWS SQS, GCP Pub/Sub, Kafka)
• Exposure to distributed tracing (Jaeger, OpenTelemetry)
• Hands-on experience with feature flagging & experimentation (LaunchDarkly)
• Background in high-volume transaction systems & fintech is a plus

What's in it for you

• Contribute to building the Middle East’s most beloved fintech brand from the ground up
• Benefit from a role with significant ownership and accountability
• Thrive in a flexible hybrid culture with ample work-life balance
• Participate in exciting offsite events
• Competitive salary and equity
• Enjoy additional perks like travel allowances, gym memberships, and more