Lead Backend Engineer
About Us
HSP Group is the premier provider of global expansion services, helping companies simplify the complex challenges of operating internationally. We deliver a seamless experience across legal entity setup, global HR, payroll, compliance, tax, and advisory, enabling our clients to scale faster, stay compliant, and reduce risk in every market they enter.
At HSP Group, we're pioneering a new niche within the fast-growing industry of global expansion management. As a Stage B startup, we focus on delivering value through relentless innovation, execution, and customer delight. As part of a small but highly experienced and dynamic team, you will play a critical role in our company's success.
About Gateway HR
Gateway HR is our HRIS platform designed specifically for global expansion management. It offers deep integration with Gateway GXM — our flagship global entity management platform — enabling capabilities like automatic payslip generation, intelligent contract management, and seamless cross-border compliance.
Our platform ecosystem already includes AI-powered document recognition and classification in production, event-driven serverless architecture on Azure, and a growing suite of integrated tools spanning HR, entity management, and compliance.
Job Description
This is a remote role
We're looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to own the technical direction of Gateway HR and drive its deep integration with GXM. You'll combine hands-on platform development with technical leadership of external development teams — evolving the architecture, building innovative features, and representing HSP's engineering standards across the codebase.
This is not a pure management role. You'll be writing code, reviewing PRs, challenging architectural decisions, and shipping features — while also setting the bar for quality and engineering practices.
The Team
You'll join a small, distributed engineering organization. Day-to-day, you'll work closely with the GXM backend team, an external development partner, and the product team. You report to the Director of Engineering.
In your first 90 days, expect to: get hands-on with both the Gateway HR and GXM codebases, establish your code review cadence with the external team, ship your first meaningful feature and start shaping the integration roadmap.
Responsibilities
Architecture & Development
- Evolve the Gateway HR architecture for scale, reliability, and deeper integration with GXM
- Design and build backend systems for automated payroll processing, compliance monitoring, and intelligent document handling
- Extend AI capabilities already in production (document recognition, classification) to new HR workflows
- Design APIs and event-driven workflows using Azure Service Bus for complex, multi-tenant operations
- Work across both MongoDB and PostgreSQL — our ecosystem uses both, and you'll need fluency in each
Engineering Excellence & External Team Management
- Lead and manage external development teams — enforce standards, challenge estimates, catch quality gaps
- Conduct rigorous code reviews and establish testing strategies (unit, integration, end-to-end)
- Build CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions for rapid, safe deployment
- Implement observability and monitoring for distributed HR workflows
- Champion code quality through documentation, mentoring, and leading by example
Leadership & Collaboration
- Mentor backend and full-stack developers — both internal and external
- Represent HSP's engineering interests when working with external development partners
- Collaborate with the GXM team on shared infrastructure, integration patterns, and architectural decisions
- Work with product to translate HRIS vision into technical reality
- Implement feature flag strategies for safe rollout of new capabilities
Qualifications
Required
- 7+ years backend development, 3+ years in technical leadership
- Experience in a regulated or compliance-heavy industry — finance, healthcare, HR/payroll, or large-scale e-commerce — where data security, audit trails, and regulatory requirements are non-negotiable
- TypeScript/Node.js — maintainable, production-ready code
- Azure serverless — Functions, Service Bus, API Management
- PostgreSQL with ORM experience (Sequelize or similar)
- MongoDB with advanced data modeling
- Experience managing external development teams — code reviews, quality enforcement, architectural guidance
- Event-driven architecture and distributed systems design
- Terraform for infrastructure as code
- GitHub Actions for CI/CD
- Track record of establishing engineering practices and raising quality standards
Preferred
- Background in HR technology, payroll platforms, or global workforce management —understanding multi-country employment, compliance, and employee lifecycle challenges
- Cerbos or similar policy-based authorization engines
- WorkOS or similar identity/authentication platforms
- Novu or similar notification infrastructure
- Python for AI/ML integration, data analytics, or workflow scripting
- Terragrunt for advanced IaC patterns
- System migration and refactoring experience — evolving legacy systems while maintaining uptime
- Multi-tenant SaaS architecture and global scalability patterns
Why Join Us?
- Own the technical direction of a platform deeply integrated with our flagship GXM product
- Lead both internal and external teams — a true engineering leadership role, not just coding
- Real AI in production — not buzzwords, but working document recognition and classification you'll extend
- Direct impact on product direction, architecture, and engineering culture
- Modern stack — Azure serverless, TypeScript, event-driven, infrastructure as code
- Remote-first culture with a small, experienced team where your leadership directly shapes the product
- Unique market position — deep integration between HR and global expansion management
If you’re a driven individual who wants to make your mark in the heart of the innovation economy, we’d love to meet you. Join our #HSPGlobalSolutionTeam and help us power the next wave of global growth.