Tech Lead (Core Systems)

Job description Are you a hands-on tech lead who loves untangling messy systems, shipping real improvements, and setting a higher engineering bar? Join meinUnterricht, Germany’s leading platform for teachers, and take ownership of the core systems that power the business behind the product. We are looking for someone who is driven and questions the status quo. This is not a pure management job. You’ll lead a small team while staying deep in the work yourself: rebuilding subscription infrastructure, modernizing cloud and data foundations, improving developer experience, and helping define what strong platform engineering looks like. Our Tech Stack We believe in transparency. You will be working across both legacy and modern systems, with a strong mandate to help us consolidate and modernize over time. Where we are going (the new stack): Monorepo architecture, APIs built with Hono, Prisma for DB migrations, Vitest, tsdown, PostgreSQL, Stripe, and AWS CDK for infrastructure. What we currently have: React, Redux, Node.js (Hapi), MongoDB (Mongoose), MySQL, Zuora, and AWS (EC2, ECS, CloudFront). What you'll do Own Core Systems: Lead the technical direction for our core systems domain, including subscription infrastructure, cloud foundations, shared backend services, database architecture, and data pipelines. Modernize the Foundation: Identify what should be kept, replaced, merged, or removed across a decade of accumulated systems, and turn that into a pragmatic target architecture with an execution path. Lead While Staying Hands-On: Manage and coach a small team of engineers while continuing to code deeply yourself, especially on the highest-leverage technical problems Raise the Bar with AI: Model an AI-first engineering culture by using tools like Claude Code, Codex, or similar across coding, migrations, infrastructure, and workflow automation. You come with Broad Systems Depth: Strong backend (fluency in Typescript/Node.JS) and infrastructure experience across areas like databases, cloud services, queues, caching, networking, integrations, or pipelines. Not just one narrow specialty. Migration Experience: You have led or played a major role in moving production systems from old to new, and you understand the messy middle: dual-running, rollout strategy, data integrity, and rollback planning. Technical Leadership: You’ve led a small team while staying close to the code, and you know how to raise standards through personal output, coaching, and direct feedback. Cloud & Platform Experience: You’re comfortable working in AWS-heavy environments and have practical experience improving infrastructure, reliability, and developer workflows. IaC experience is a big plus. AI-Native Mindset: You actively use AI tools in real engineering work and see them as a serious force multiplier, not a gimmick. Why us? Meaningful Product: Build infrastructure behind a platform that helps tens of thousands of teachers prepare better lessons, faster. Real Ownership: You’ll own a critical systems domain with direct impact on revenue, product velocity, and the technical future of the company. AI-First Engineering Culture: We invest heavily in AI tooling (Claude Max Plan or equal) and expect engineers to use it deeply and practically in day-to-day work. Strong Berlin Setup: Work from our office at Potsdamer Platz with a hybrid setup that supports both focused execution and in-person collaboration. Meaningful Benefits: A device of your choice, Deutschland Ticket or Urban Sports Club, work remotely from anywhere in the world for up to 10 days per year, Jobrad, and more. Process Remote Coding Challenge Technical interview (Videocall) System design interview (preferably on site in our offices in Berlin) Leadership interview (preferably on site in our offices in Berlin)