Freelance- Lead Developer- Technical Lead

Lead Developer / Technical Lead - Freelance

AI-Enabled Product & Data Platform 

Hands-on engineering lead to turn a mature R&D prototype into a secure, reusable, production-ready product platform. 

Role Details 

Role Overview 

We are seeking a senior, hands-on technical lead to assume ownership of an existing product codebase and lead its transition from R&D prototype to production-ready platform. The role will contribute code from day one, own application architecture and delivery standards, and coordinate a second developer focused on the shared data and intelligence layer. The successful candidate will work across product, data, cloud, QA, security and UX to deliver a secure, scalable first release and establish the foundation for future modules. 

Key Responsibilities 

• Assess the current codebase, environments and contracts, then lead the transition from prototype to a secure, maintainable product. 

• Design and build the reusable platform core, including the API/BFF layer, operational database, tenant/client/event model, roles, permissions, entitlements, configuration, audit and usage telemetry. 

• Remain hands-on across React/TypeScript front-end development, Python/FastAPI services, AWS infrastructure, integrations and automated testing. 

• Define versioned APIs and data contracts between the product platform and the shared data/intelligence layer, including backward-compatibility rules. 

• Provide day-to-day technical oversight to the data-platform developer and coordinate data products, AI tools, evidence/lineage outputs, schema changes and release dependencies. 

• Enforce client and event-level isolation, anonymized data handling, secure access, auditability and governed AI outputs. 

• Establish engineering standards for code review, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, observability, quality gates, security and release management. 

• Maintain concise architecture documentation using UML/PlantUML and Architecture Decision Records, while mentoring and unblocking additional developers as the team grows. 

• Use generative AI to accelerate implementation, testing, documentation and refactoring while maintaining human review and secure engineering controls. 

Technical Environment 

Required Experience 

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including 3+ years in a lead developer, technical lead or hands-on architecture role. 

• Strong full-stack capability across modern React/TypeScript applications and Python/FastAPI services. 

• Production experience with AWS, infrastructure as code, CI/CD, observability, secrets management and secure identity patterns. 

• Experience with PostgreSQL and Snowflake or a comparable cloud data platform. 

• Strong understanding of multi-tenant SaaS, RBAC, entitlements, client isolation, auditability and security-by-design. 

• Experience designing versioned APIs, schemas and data contracts, including breaking-change management. 

• Strong automated testing discipline across application, data and AI workflows. 

• Proven ability to lead and mentor developers while remaining an active contributor to the codebase. 

• Clear communication with product, data, QA, security and executive stakeholders. 

Preferred Experience 

• Snowflake Cortex, enterprise AI agents, governed AI tools, RAG or comparable LLM platforms. 

• Cognito, OAuth/OIDC, serverless/event-driven integration patterns and AWS multi-account governance. 

• Data anonymization, pseudonymization, DLP, consent, retention and privacy-sensitive product design. 

• TOGAF, UML/PlantUML and ADR-driven architecture governance. 

• Usage metering, cloud cost attribution, FinOps or consumption-based product models. 

• Client-facing consulting, analytics products, event/attendee data or product-incubation experience. 

First 90 Days 

Working Model 

This is a hands-on lead role, not a management-only position. The successful candidate will initially spend a significant portion of the engagement writing and reviewing production code while setting technical standards and overseeing the data-platform developer. The role will expand as additional engineers and product modules are funded.