About the Role
We're looking for a Tech Lead Manager to lead a squad of 4–8 engineers. This is a player-coach role: you'll stay hands-on technically (40–60% IC work) while owning your team's delivery, quality, and people development.
At this level, you're the first-line manager for your squad—running 1:1s, giving feedback, coaching careers, and building a culture of ownership and psychological safety. You're also still in the code, making technical decisions and shipping alongside your team.
What You'll Do
People & Team (40–60%)
Build the team — Hire and onboard E1–E3 engineers
Develop your people — Run effective 1:1s, give direct feedback, write performance reviews, and coach career growth
Foster culture — Build psychological safety, ownership, and accountability within the squad
Shield the team — Remove blockers, handle noise, and keep the squad focused on delivery
Technical (40–60%)
Stay hands-on — Write code, review PRs, and contribute to technical decisions
Own delivery — Ensure the squad delivers on commitments with high quality and predictable velocity
Drive quality — Champion testing, observability, and engineering best practices
Handle incidents — Own squad-level incidents and postmortems
Leverage AI — Use AI tools daily for code reviews, design drafts, and debugging; teach the squad effective AI usage
Planning & Alignment
Run the squad — Lead sprint planning, backlog refinement, and retrospectives
Align with product — Partner with PMs and designers to translate requirements into deliverable work
Communicate up — Represent the squad in planning, cross-team syncs, and leadership discussions
What We're Looking For
Experience
4+ years in software engineering
1+ years managing or leading a team (formal or informal)
Technical
Strong technical background—you can guide architecture discussions and code reviews
Familiar with modern development practices: CI/CD, cloud platforms (AWS/GCP), observability
Comfortable with our stack or similar: Java/Spring, Angular/React, PostgreSQL, AWS, DataDog
Still enjoys being in the code and staying technically sharp
AI Fluency
Uses AI tools (Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT) daily for code reviews, design drafts, and debugging
Teaches squad effective AI usage and best practices
Experiments with AI to accelerate team delivery and quality
Leadership & People
Experience running 1:1s and giving direct, kind feedback
Track record of developing engineers and helping them grow
Servant leadership mindset—you enable others to do their best work
Builds trust, psychological safety, and ownership culture
Communication
Clear communicator with engineers, PMs, and leadership
Sets expectations and provides continuous feedback
Fluent in Spanish; working knowledge of English for cross-team collaboration
Mindset
Comfortable balancing people and technical responsibilities
Thrives in ambiguity; makes smart trade-offs with incomplete information
Cares about both business outcomes and engineering excellence
Nice to Have
Experience in fintech, payments, or high-growth startups
Background scaling or building teams from scratch
Familiarity with engineering career frameworks and coaching practices
On-call and incident management experience
Our Stack
Java/Spring, Python, Go · Angular, React · PostgreSQL, MongoDB · AWS (ECS, Lambda) · DataDog · Pulumi · Jenkins
Why Aplazo
Our mission is to empower financial access and opportunity across Latin America through fair, simple, and transparent solutions. Our tech vision: be the most beloved and innovative tech organization in Latin America.
We're a Series B fintech growing fast—you'll build and lead a team that ships products reaching millions of customers.
Personal data collected during the recruitment process will be processed in accordance with the Privacy Notice of Aplaz, S.A. de C.V. (“Aplazo”), available at our Privacy and Policy Notice.
Aplazo does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, skin color, sex, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, marital status, disability, social or economic status, sexual preferences, or any other condition or characteristic. Selection is based solely on the qualifications and merits of the candidates.
#LI-Remote
4+ years software engineering; 1+ year leading a team; strong architecture and code-review skills; CI/CD, cloud (AWS/GCP); stack: Java/Spring, Angular/React, PostgreSQL; fluent in Spanish; comfortable in English for cross-team collaboration
Key Responsibilities
- Leadership
- Delivery
- Mentoring
Skills & Tools
Java, Spring, Angular, React, PostgreSQL, AWS, GCP, DataDog, CI/CD, Pulumi, Jenkins
Job Details
- Category: Software Development
- Seniority: Senior Level
- Commitment: Full Time
- Workplace: Remote — Argentina or Brazil or Colombia or Mexico or United States
- Languages: Spanish, English
About Aplazo
Fintech company enabling financial access in Latin America — Industry: Finance