FlipaClip - Backend Tech Lead

About FlipaClip

FlipaClip is the world’s biggest animation app with over +90 million lifetime installs.

FlipaClip turns any mobile device into an animation studio.

Animated movies and shows require massive budgets, years of production, or the approval of a handful of studios to exist. That’s how the industry has worked for decades.

Very soon, a blockbuster animated movie will be entirely produced by a 15-year old in her parent’s basement. On a phone. And it will be made and distributed for $0.

We are on it.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the delivery and long-term operation of high-impact backend systems, from architecture to production.
• Set and evolve backend processes, engineering standards, and technical best practices.
• Define and actively use KPIs covering system reliability, development speed, data quality, and error rates.
• Make system-level architectural decisions and technical tradeoffs with a clear understanding of impact.
• Establish automated testing and validation processes that reduce regressions and operational risk.
• Introduce AI-assisted development workflows where they increase leverage, with strong validation and safety mechanisms.
• Communicate progress, risks, and technical decisions clearly across engineering and product stakeholders.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building and maintaining with AWS
• Demonstrable experience delivering high-impact backend systems and projects that operate successfully in production
• Strong experience building backend services for mobile applications (iOS/Android)
• Ownership: Strong sense of ownership, strategic thinking, and a solution-first mindset
• Management: Creating structure where needed. Processes, standards, and objectives that teams actually follow.
• Product-minded: Able to balance engineering quality with pragmatic trade-offs to move fast.
• Customer-obsessed: Making technical decisions with a clear understanding of how they affect customers, product quality, and our overall business.
• Solid experience working with Node.js and TypeScript
• Strong understanding of modern React frameworks
• Experience with Docker and containerized deployments
• Solid understanding of RESTful API design and implementation
• Interest in or experience with Generative AI and related technologies

It is a MUST to have...

• Owned analytics infrastructure at a consumer or product-led company. Has taken Amplitude, Mixpanel, or Segment from messy to trustworthy. Used RevenueCat or other subscription tools. Used Appsflyer or other attribution tools. Defined event taxonomy, governance, reconciliation.
• Shipped experimentation infrastructure. A/B test data quality, variant assignment, SRM detection, trustworthy success metrics.
• Backend engineering depth on user or identity systems. Python or Node production. Debugged UUID, device ID, or session identity across login, logout, multi-device, reinstall.
• Has led 1 to 3 engineers. Set technical direction, upskilled non-data engineers.
• SQL-fluent at modeling level. Evidence to look for: Designed event schemas or metrics layers others relied on.

Nice to Have

• Hands-on experience working on AI/ML or LLM-based products.
• Experience with NestJS framework
• Python experience, particularly with Apache Airflow or similar ETL tools
• Knowledge of Firebase (Authentication, Firestore, Remote Config)
• Experience with Infrastructure-as-Code (Pulumi or Terraform)
• Familiarity with observability tools (OpenTelemetry, Signoz, or similar)
• Experience with video streaming technologies (HLS, MediaConvert)
• Knowledge of analytics platforms (Amplitude, MoEngage, or similar)
• Experience with ElasticSearch or similar search technologies
• Understanding of mobile app backend requirements (iOS/Android)
• Experience with subscription/payment integrations (Purchasely, RevenueCat, IAP)

Our Tech Stack

Backend

• Node.js (14/16) with NestJS and Restify frameworks
• Python 3.9 for ETL and data pipelines
• Apache Airflow 2.7.3 for workflow orchestration
• JWT-based authentication
• Sequelize ORM

Frontend

• Next.js 15 with App Router
• React 18/19 with TypeScript
• Tailwind CSS for styling
• Zustand for state management
• SWR for data fetching
• Radix UI component library
• Infrastructure & DevOps
• AWS (ECS Fargate, S3, RDS, ElastiCache, SQS, CloudFront, MediaConvert)
• Docker and Docker Compose
• Pulumi for Infrastructure-as-Code
• GitHub Actions for CI/CD
• Vercel for frontend deployments

Data & Storage

• MySQL and PostgreSQL (AWS RDS)
• Redis (AWS ElastiCache)
• ElasticSearch for search functionality
• Firebase Firestore
• AWS S3 and Cloudflare R2 for asset storage

Observability

• Signoz with OpenTelemetry (OTLP)
• Winston for structured logging
• Slack webhooks for alerting

The Selection Process

• Silver.dev Recruiter Screen
• Silver.dev Live Coding Screen
• Behavioral Screen with FlipaClip's CAO
• Work Experience Overview + some Technical Discussion with FlipaClip's COO
• Final Screen with FlipaClip's CEO