This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, which manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Staff Engineer – Cross Border based in India.
As a Staff Engineer – Cross Border, you will shape the technical direction of a global e-commerce platform connecting international buyers with sellers in Japan. You will lead the architecture and development of scalable backend systems that support a seamless shopping experience across multiple countries, currencies, and regulatory environments. Working across engineering teams in India and Japan, you will drive cross-functional technical decisions, establish reliable service boundaries, and simplify complex distributed systems. This hands-on leadership role combines strategic system design with practical implementation, production reliability, and engineering mentorship. You will also help establish an AI-native engineering culture by integrating coding agents and AI-assisted development practices into everyday workflows. Your work will directly influence platform scalability, engineering productivity, and the successful expansion of a global marketplace into new regions
Accountabilities
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Define technical direction: Shape the architecture of cross-border backend systems supporting international customers purchasing from Japanese marketplace sellers.
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Lead cross-team system design: Coordinate architecture across the entire purchasing journey, including discovery and search, product details, pricing, landed costs, checkout, payments, and post-purchase experiences.
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Establish clear service boundaries: Define robust API contracts and Backend-for-Frontend (BFF) patterns that support iOS, Android, and web applications.
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Build scalable backend services: Design, develop, test, and maintain reliable Go services while remaining hands-on with complex technical challenges and critical implementation work.
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Enable global platform scalability: Develop systems that support multiple regions through a consistent global platform, avoiding unnecessary country-specific fragmentation.
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Own production reliability: Establish standards for observability, safe deployments, incident response, and continuous operational improvement across marketplace services, partner integrations, payment systems, and third-party providers.
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Accelerate engineering delivery: Help two to four engineering teams overcome complex design challenges, simplify platform architecture, and improve delivery speed and quality.
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Advance AI-assisted engineering: Integrate coding agents, AI-assisted code reviews, automated testing, debugging, and operational automation into the software development lifecycle.
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Drive cross-functional alignment: Collaborate with product managers and engineers across India and Japan to turn ambiguous business and technical challenges into actionable engineering plans.
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Mentor technical leaders: Coach senior engineers, strengthen architectural decision-making, and help engineering teams use AI agents effectively while maintaining high standards of software quality and reliability.
Requirements
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Professional experience: 10–12 years of software engineering experience, including demonstrated leadership of complex backend initiatives spanning multiple teams.
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Backend engineering expertise: Strong experience with Go or the ability to become productive in Go quickly, including API design, implementation, and testing.
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Distributed systems: Deep knowledge of designing, building, and operating distributed systems in cloud-native environments, particularly Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Kubernetes.
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System architecture: Excellent system design, data modeling, production debugging, and architectural decision-making skills.
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Production reliability: Experience operating customer-facing systems at approximately 99.95% availability, with a strong understanding of observability, incident management, and reliability engineering.
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Customer-facing product delivery: A proven record of delivering large-scale, customer-visible product capabilities rather than focusing exclusively on internal services.
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Technical leadership: Ability to influence architecture and engineering standards across multiple teams without relying on formal authority.
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AI-enabled development: Practical experience applying AI or large language models (LLMs) to improve engineering productivity through coding agents, AI-assisted reviews, testing, debugging, or similar workflows.
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Communication and collaboration: Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain architectural decisions, technical trade-offs, and risks to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
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Cross-border commerce knowledge: Experience with international e-commerce, payments, multi-currency transactions, or multi-region systems is an advantage.
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Search and data platforms: Familiarity with search, personalization, Elasticsearch, event streams, or machine learning pipelines is desirable.
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Client and API architecture: Experience with BFF patterns and familiarity with React or mobile application clients is beneficial.
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External integrations: Experience integrating third-party partners and external APIs at scale is an advantage.
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Platform engineering: A track record of simplifying technology stacks, improving shared platforms, or driving platformization initiatives is valuable.
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AI tooling development: Experience developing AI agents or AI-powered developer tools is a plus.
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Learning mindset: Willingness to learn the Japanese marketplace domain, internal platforms, and cross-border requirements involving duties, taxes, logistics, and regional regulations.
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Leadership approach: A collaborative, proactive mindset that balances bold architectural thinking with practical execution, shared ownership, and a commitment to engineering excellence.
Benefits
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Employment type: Full-time position.
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Work arrangement: Hybrid working model based in Bengaluru, India.
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Weekly flexibility: The stated working arrangement includes two days per week in the office and three days working remotely.
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In-person collaboration: Team members are encouraged to work from the Bengaluru office, particularly during the initial office setup phase, to strengthen collaboration and organizational development.
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Professional impact: Opportunity to influence the architecture of a global e-commerce platform and contribute to expansion into additional international markets.
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Technical ownership: A hands-on staff-level engineering role with significant influence over system design, platform reliability, and cross-team engineering standards.
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AI-driven innovation: Opportunity to help define how engineers and autonomous AI agents collaborate across software design, development, testing, deployment, and operations.
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Mentorship and leadership: Scope to develop senior engineers and strengthen technical leadership across distributed engineering teams in India and Japan.
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Salary and additional benefits: Compensation, healthcare coverage, bonuses, equity, paid leave, and other benefits are not specified in the available job description and should be confirmed during the hiring process.