Senior Software Development Engineer (Sr. SDE) – Full Stack

Only apply if: You have 2+ years shipping production systems, you have led end-to-end delivery of a multi-user application (RBAC, data model, APIs, UI, and deployment), and you can walk us through live products you architected or substantially owned.

Who We Are
Steps AI is a product company building intelligent, AI-powered software for modern businesses. We design and ship production systems that combine strong user experience, reliable backends, and data-driven intelligence. We work with real customers, deploy to both cloud and on-premises environments, and move from prototype to production with a high bar for security, access control, and operational quality.
We are growing, shipping every week, and looking for engineers who can own a problem end to end — interface, API, data, security, and deployment — rather than a single layer of the stack.
The Role
We are hiring a Senior Full-Stack SDE to own technical direction for product surfaces that must become production-grade: secure, role-aware, observable, and deployable in both cloud and on-premises settings.
You will often start from something that already works as a demonstration — a dashboard, a workflow, an API — and you will be responsible for turning it into a system an institution can run: identity and RBAC, hard boundaries between roles and data scopes, auditability, environment strategy, database operations, and a release path that survives real users.
This is a senior individual-contributor role with leadership scope. You will set standards, review others' work, write design notes, and be the escalation point when production or a client deployment breaks.

What You Will Own

Architecture and End-to-End Delivery

• Define the target architecture for web application, API, data store, file/object storage, and deployment topology.
• Take existing demos or internal builds and produce a full production plan: threat model, role matrix, schema, environments, and cutover.
• Make explicit tradeoffs (monolith vs services, session vs JWT, cloud vs on-prem) and defend them in writing.
• Keep the system scalable: pagination, indexing, caching, background jobs, and a folder/module structure that a growing team can extend.

Frontend

• Set the standard for the product UI: information hierarchy, reusable components, and performance on data-heavy views.
• Guide implementation of complex operational interfaces — filtered registers, drill-downs, maps or spatial views, reports, and approval flows.
• Ensure the frontend enforces the same authorization story the API does; the UI is not a substitute for server-side checks.
• Raise design quality when there is no dedicated designer: spacing, density, empty/error states, and consistency across surfaces.

Backend, Security, and RBAC

• Design and review APIs (Python/FastAPI and/or Node/TypeScript) with validated contracts, idempotency where needed, and clear failure modes.
• Own authentication, authorization, and session lifecycle. Implement and review role- and scope-based access (organization, unit, record).
• Introduce audit logs, least-privilege service accounts, secrets management, and safe admin tooling.
• Harden anything that was built as a demo: remove debug paths, lock CORS and hosts, rotate credentials, and document a security baseline.
• Plan for high-assurance environments: TLS, network isolation, backup/restore drills, and controlled on-premises configuration.

Database and Data Platform

• Own schema design at a production bar: normalization where it matters, indexes, constraints, and migration discipline.
• Define how analytical or operational reads stay fast without putting the write path at risk.
• Specify backup, point-in-time recovery expectations, and data-retention basics.
• Review imports and seed processes so production data is never treated casually.
• Cloud, On-Prem, and DevOps
• Own Docker packaging, CI/CD, and promotion across environments.
• Lead or personally execute on-premises installations at client locations in Hyderabad, including networking, certificates, and smoke tests.
• Establish logging, metrics, and error tracking sufficient to debug without guessing.
• Be the on-call escalation for platform issues in your scope.

Required Skills

• You should have shipped the following to production and be able to demonstrate them live or from a real repository:
• React and TypeScript at production quality; Next.js App Router strongly preferred. Server/client state (TanStack Query or equivalent), forms with schema validation, and a coherent component system.
• Python (FastAPI) and/or Node (NestJS / Fastify / Express) with typed contracts and tests where they matter.
• Authentication and authorization: sessions or JWT with rotation, password hashing, OAuth familiarity, and server-side checks on every route.
• PostgreSQL (or equivalent) schema design, migrations, indexing, and query diagnosis.
• Docker, CI/CD, environment promotion, TLS/DNS basics, and production debugging across services.
• RBAC design, auditability, secrets handling, and the habit of assuming the UI will be bypassed.
• Mentor SDEs; run structured code reviews; raise the quality bar without blocking delivery.
• Write short design documents and postmortems. Prefer written tradeoffs over hallway decisions.
• Translate business or client requirements into a technical specification and a realistic release plan.

Must-Have Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent, plus 5+ years of professional engineering.
• A experience of owning a multi-user application through production — not only contributing tickets.
• Demonstrated experience introducing or tightening RBAC, environments, and operational discipline on a live system.
• Comfort presenting architecture to founders and to a technical client contact.
• On-site availability in Hyderabad, every working day, with the team.
• Willingness to travel to on-premises deployment sites and client locations in Hyderabad.

Location, Work Mode, and Travel
This is a full-time, on-site role in Hyderabad, India. You will work in person with the engineering team.
Occasional travel is required. This includes travel to on-premises deployment locations and travel to client sites in Hyderabad for implementation, go-live, reviews, or production support. Travel is typically short-duration and planned; willingness to travel within Hyderabad (and occasionally nearby) is a condition of the role.

What We Offer

• Competitive salary with a clear growth path. Add salary range at posting.
• High-ownership work: you will influence architecture, security, and how the product is shipped.
• Exposure to AI-assisted products, enterprise-grade access control, and real production deployments.
• Fast execution cycles and a culture that values demonstrated capability over credentials alone.
• Learning budget for courses and certifications.
• Collaborative in-office engineering culture in Hyderabad.