Senior Lead Software Engineer - Backend

Overview Who we are Collaborative. Respectful. A place to dream and do. These are just a few words that describe what life is like at Toyota. As one of the world’s most admired brands, Toyota is growing and leading the future of mobility through innovative, high-quality solutions designed to enhance lives and delight those we serve. We’re looking for talented team members who want to Dream. Do. Grow. with us. An important part of the Toyota family is Toyota Financial Services (TFS), the finance and insurance brand for Toyota and Lexus in North America. While TFS is a separate business entity, it is an essential part of this world-changing company- delivering on Toyota's vision to move people beyond what's possible. At TFS, you will help create best-in-class customer experience in an innovative, collaborative environment. Toyota does not offer support or sponsorship of job applicants for employment-based visas or any other work authorization for this role now or in the future. You must have the right to work in the United States and not require Toyota support or sponsorship for immigration-related employment (e.g., H-1B, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, TN, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM, OPT, F-1 CPT, ‘job flexibility benefits’ [also known as I-140 or Adjustment of Status portability], etc.) now or in the future. You should not apply for this role if you will require Toyota to assist with immigration support or sponsorship now or in the future. Who we're looking for At TFS, we're building next-generation products that redefine mobility for millions of customers worldwide. We're looking for a Sr Lead Engineer — Backend. An individual contributor at the principal level — who brings deep backend expertise, strong full-stack instincts, and the technical leadership to raise the bar across the entire engineering organization.This isn't a management role. It's for the engineer who is the go-to person in the room: the one who shapes architecture, mentors peers without being asked, digs into the hardest problems, and leaves every system better than they found it. You'll work across teams, influence technical direction, and be a force multiplier for everyone around you. This position is based in Plano, TX. The selected candidate will be expected to reside within a commutable distance of this location. What you'll be doing Serve as the technical authority for backend and platform architecture across one or more product domains, making high-impact decisions on patterns, tooling, and standards Design, build, and maintain full-stack features — from APIs and serverless services to the data models and event-driven workflows that power them Lead technical design reviews, architecture discussions, and RFC processes — driving alignment across engineering teams Identify and resolve systemic issues: performance bottlenecks, reliability gaps, scaling constraints, and tech debt that slows teams down Own complex debugging and troubleshooting across the full stack — from API latency to infrastructure misconfigurations to distributed system failures Define and champion engineering best practices: code quality, testing strategies, observability, and deployment safety Collaborate closely with Engineering Managers, Product, and Front-End Engineering to shape roadmaps and ensure technical feasibility Mentor and grow engineers at all levels through code reviews, pairing, design feedback, and technical guidance Contribute to hiring by conducting technical interviews and helping define what great looks like for backend engineering at TFS Proactively communicate technical risks, tradeoffs, and recommendations to both engineering and non-technical stakeholders What you bring Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent practical experience 7+ years of software engineering experience with a strong backend or full-stack focus and a track record of operating at a principal or staff engineer level Deep expertise in designing and building  serverless architectures on AWS , including: Lambda  for compute API Gateway  (REST and HTTP APIs) for service exposure DynamoDB  or  Aurora Serverless  for data persistence Step Functions  or other workflow orchestration tools EventBridge ,  SQS , or  SNS  for event-driven and async communication S3  for object storage and data lake patterns CloudFront  for API acceleration and edge caching Strong proficiency in  TypeScript  and/or  Python  for backend services — you default to production-quality code and advocate for it across the codebase Proven ability to design, build, and maintain  RESTful and GraphQL APIs , including API contract design, versioning, error handling, and type-safe tooling (e.g., OpenAPI, GraphQL Code Generator, tRPC) Solid understanding of  Infrastructure as Code  using  AWS CDK , CloudFormation, or Terraform Experience with  observability and monitoring  tooling: CloudWatch, X-Ray, Datadog, or similar — you know how to instrument services, trace distributed requests, and respond to incidents Strong understanding of  security best practices : IAM policies, least-privilege access, secrets management (Secrets Manager, SSM Parameter Store), and data encryption at rest and in transit Deep experience debugging complex issues across distributed systems — network traces, distributed tracing, log analysis, and profiling Experience with testing at all levels: unit, integration, contract, and load testing for distributed systems Familiarity with  containerized workloads  (ECS Fargate, Docker) for services that don't fit the serverless model Strong written and verbal communication — you can write a clear RFC, lead a design review, and explain a complex tradeoff to a non-technical stakeholder Added bonus if you have Master's degree in Computer Science or related field Experience in the financial services, banking, or insurance industry Experience designing  multi-account AWS architectures  with proper governance and guardrail