Senior Software Engineer - Tech Lead Full Stack (Hybrid)

About the Role

We are looking for a Senior Software Engineer (Tech Lead Full Stack) to join our team at ProtocolHero. This role is perfect for someone who is ready to take on end-to-end technical ownership in a hybrid work environment, splitting time between our Cologne office and home. As a Senior Software Engineer remote, you will lead a talented four-person engineering team, setting the technical direction and elevating code quality and delivery.

What You'll Do

• Take ownership of our architecture and codebase, making decisions for scalability, stability, and clean long-term development.
• Establish quality standards and a reliable delivery routine while leading our tech team of senior and junior engineers.
• Actively develop critical features in the backend using Laravel and ideally in the frontend with React.
• Drive improvements in operations and performance, utilizing Redis for queues and caching, Docker setup, CI/CD, and observability.
• Integrate and evolve AI features, including robust workflows, prompt and output logic, monitoring, cost control, and guardrails.
• Support the expansion towards mobile apps or clients by building a solid API foundation with authentication, synchronization, and offline capabilities.
• Collaborate closely with our Product Manager to translate requirements into technical concepts while balancing scope, effort, and quality.
• Work directly with the founder to constructively challenge decisions and build a technical roadmap that enables growth.

Requirements

• Several years of experience as a technical lead in professional software engineering, ideally in B2B SaaS and full stack environments.
• Proven ability to make architecture and tech stack decisions and explain them clearly.
• Strong skills in Laravel, API design, queues, jobs, data modeling, and performance.
• Good to very good knowledge of React with Inertia, optionally with TypeScript.
• Experience with Docker and modern deployment setups, including CI/CD, logs, and monitoring.
• Understanding of production requirements such as stability, security, performance, and operations.
• Structured, self-driven working style with high quality standards without perfectionism.
• Experience leading small to mid-sized teams with clear leadership communication.
• Very good English (C1) is required; fluent German is a plus.

Nice to Have

• Experience integrating AI services into production software.
• Knowledge of Python.

What We Offer

• Direct collaboration with the founder and product for fast decisions.
• Real technical ownership instead of pure ticket execution.
• Modern setup: latest Apple equipment, great tools, and budget for productive work.
• Attractive compensation package with a bonus model and clear growth path.
• Option for employee participation depending on role and tenure.
• Pragmatic team culture with high ownership, no politics, and no micromanagement.