Role description
UST Tittle: Lead I - Software Engineering
Who we are:
At UST, we help the world’s best organizations grow and succeed through transformation. Bringing together the right talent, tools, and ideas, we work with our client to co-create lasting change. Together, with over 30,000 employees in 30+ countries, we build for boundless impact—touching billions of lives in the process. Visit us at .
Summary:
UST is looking for Sr. Lead Backend Developer
The Opportunity:
- We are looking for a hands-on Backend Developer Lead to own the API and service layer of a large-scale geospatial platform built on Next.js, tRPC and PostgreSQL/PostGIS, running on Google Cloud Run.
- This is a modular monolith, not a microservices estate — a documented route manager engine repository architecture, wired with Inversify dependency injection, across 11 PostgreSQL schemas and 69 data models.
- The role demands genuine depth: you will complete an unfinished authorisation refactor, finish a streaming-export programme, resolve a dual-ORM strategy, and clear a significant security remediation backlog — all in a 65,000-line codebase with only 9 test files.
- The ideal candidate is a strong backend engineer who is comfortable owning technical design and leading a team while remaining predominantly hands-on.
Key Responsibilities:
- Lead the hands-on design and development of the API and service layer using TypeScript, Next.js, tRPC 11 and Zod. Own 17 tRPC routers and 17 REST route handlers, and the layered architecture behind them — managers, engines and repositories wired with Inversify.
- Complete the unified authorisation refactor currently unfinished across open merge requests — make server-side authorisation authoritative and treat UI checks as convenience only.
- Own PostgreSQL 16 + PostGIS 3.5 across 11 schemas — schema design, indexing, query plans, and transaction boundaries.
- Resolve the dual-ORM strategy: Prisma owns 128 migrations, Drizzle owns 11, both targeting the same database.
- Publish and enforce an ownership map per bounded context.
- Own the import pipeline — 14 import.* staging tables converted into live schemas under transaction, including plan survey, personal plan and plan spend imports.
- Complete the streaming CSV export programme across five bulk export routes, preserving correct backpressure (ReadableStream with pull()) and cursor-based pagination — no loading whole datasets into memory.
- Clear the security remediation backlog — 182 findings including 15 critical and 49 high — covering dependency advisories, an SSRF in application code, and secret rotation.
- Own authentication and session via NextAuth 4 and Okta/OIDC, including permission utilities and organisation/group scoping.
- Integrate Google Cloud services — Cloud Storage across 8 buckets, Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Secret Manager, and GCP logging.
- Establish backend test coverage where almost none exists — a database-backed integration harness, plus unit tests on permissions, geometry, subscriptions and export engines.
- Set and enforce backend engineering standards: coding conventions, code review, testing, and documentation.
- Champion the effective use of AI-assisted development tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT) to accelerate delivery and raise code quality.
- Own backend non-functional quality: performance, scalability, resilience, observability, and security.
- Identify and pay down technical debt across oversized routers (organization-router.ts 1,102 lines, plan-router.ts 994, import-router.ts 815).
- Collaborate with Frontend, Architecture, QA and DevOps to deliver business outcomes. Mentor backend engineers and support technical growth.
Required Skills & Experience
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- 8+ years of backend software development experience, including 2+ years leading a team or squad technically.
- Deep expertise in TypeScript and Node.js in production.
- Strong experience with tRPC or a comparable typed RPC layer — routers, procedures, middleware, and the typed client/server contract.
- Strong experience with Next.js server-side — route handlers, App Router API design, instrumentation.ts, and standalone output.
- Zod or equivalent runtime validation at the API boundary.
- Deep PostgreSQL — schema design, indexing strategy, query plans, and transaction isolation.
- You should read EXPLAIN ANALYZE comfortably.
- Experience with multi-schema PostgreSQL — search paths, cross-schema foreign keys, and permissions.
- Strong ORM experience — Prisma and/or Drizzle — including migration strategy and the judgement to run two ORMs safely side by side.
- Node streams / Web Streams — genuine understanding of backpressure, not just piping.
- Dependency injection in a JavaScript/TypeScript runtime — Inversify or equivalent — including lifecycle and scoping in a serverless runtime.
- Layered architecture discipline: thin routes, orchestrating managers, domain engines, persistence-only repositories.
- Authentication and authorisation at implementation level — OAuth2/OIDC, JWT, session management, and permission modelling.
- Application security fundamentals — OWASP Top 10, SSRF defence, secrets management, dependency advisory remediation.
- Testing with Vitest, including database-backed integration testing.
- Practical, day-to-day use of AI-assisted engineering tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT or similar).
- Experience working in Agile/Scrum environments.
Preferred Qualifications
- PostGIS in production — geometry types, spatial indexes, SRID handling, and validity.
- Coordinate reference systems and reprojection (proj4, ST_Transform) — this product handles EPSG:27700, 29901 and 23030. Google Cloud Platform — Cloud Run, Cloud SQL, Cloud Storage, Secret Manager, Artifact Registry.
- NextAuth 4 with an enterprise OIDC provider (Okta).
- Streaming exports at scale (100k+ rows) and cursor-based pagination. Queue-driven worker extraction — Pub/Sub, Cloud Tasks, or Cloud Run jobs.
- Experience running a release-candidate dependency in production, and a view on the risk (this codebase runs tRPC 11.0.0-rc.593).
- Server-side document generation — pdfmake, Playwright, svgdom. pgAudit, Cloud SQL Auth Proxy, IAM database authentication. GitLab CI/CD and Docker multi-stage builds.
- Experience improving a codebase with a very thin test suite without stopping delivery.
- Leadership Competencies Strong hands-on technical leadership, leading by example within the codebase.
- Ability to make pragmatic technical decisions, justify trade-offs clearly, and disagree constructively.
- Proven ability to mentor and coach backend engineers.
- Excellent communication skills, including explaining data and security constraints to non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong ownership mindset — sees features through from design to production support.
- Sound judgement in balancing delivery pace against engineering quality and technical debt.
- Customer-focused mindset with a commitment to delivering business value.
What we believe:
We’re proud to embrace the same values that have shaped UST since the beginning. Since day one, we’ve been building enduring relationships and a culture of integrity. And today, it's those same values that are inspiring us to encourage innovation from everyone, to champion diversity and inclusion and to place people at the centre of everything we do.
Humility:
We will listen, learn, be empathetic and help selflessly in our interactions with everyone.
Humanity:
Through business, we will better the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves.
Integrity:
We honour our commitments and act with responsibility in all our relationships.
Equal Employment Opportunity Statement
UST is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe that no one should be discriminated against because of their differences, such as age, disability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, religion, or sexual orientation.
All employment decisions shall be made without regard to age, race, creed, colour, religion, sex, national origin, ancestry, disability status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, citizenship status or any other basis as protected by federal, state, or local law.
UST reserves the right to periodically redefine your roles and responsibilities based on the requirements of the organization and/or your performance.
• To support and promote the values of UST.
- Comply with all Company policies and procedures
Skills
Next.js, Node.js, REST, SQL
About UST
UST is a global digital transformation solutions provider. For more than 20 years, UST has worked side by side with the world’s best companies to make a real impact through transformation. Powered by technology, inspired by people and led by purpose, UST partners with their clients from design to operation. With deep domain expertise and a future-proof philosophy, UST embeds innovation and agility into their clients’ organizations. With over 30,000 employees in 30 countries, UST builds for boundless impact—touching billions of lives in the process.
