About the role
structured by ORI### Lead Software Engineer, Backend - Business Platform • Team Engineering • Location Jakarta, Indonesia • Job Type Full-time The role at a glance Get to know the Team The Business Platform team at Grab focuses on empowering a diverse range of Southeast Asian merchants—from local street stalls to international…
What you will do
- Independently designs, builds, and operates high-quality software systems, ensuring they are secure, reliable, maintainable, and rigorously tested.
- Applies advanced architectural patterns and infrastructure best practices, while maintaining accountability for post-deployment monitoring and system health.
- Collaborates effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, actively contributing to the entire product lifecycle from initial design to final rollout.
- Proactively identifies and implements improvements to team workflows and engineering processes to enhance overall efficiency and delivery.
- Acts as a senior leader by mentoring junior engineers and fostering a culture of continuous learning and professional development within the team.
What they are looking for
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with strong hands-on proficiency in Python and/or Go.
- Deep expertise in designing, building, and maintaining distributed backend architectures and microservices.
- Proven track record with core backend infrastructure, including relational and NoSQL databases, caching layers (e.g., Redis), and message brokers/event streaming (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ).
- Strong expertise in RESTful API design, contract management, and service-to-service communication (e.g., gRPC).
- Solid foundation in system design, high-availability architecture, and performance optimization at scale.
- Practical experience deploying and managing services on modern cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), adhering to CI/CD and DevOps best practices.
- Proactive learner with strong ownership, keeping pace with emerging backend patterns and AI technologies.
- Hands-on experience building Generative AI applications or AI Agent workflows using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, or LlamaIndex.
- Practical knowledge of RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines and vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Milvus, Qdrant, pgvector).
Benefits
- Term Life Insurance and comprehensive Medical Insurance.
- With GrabFlex, create a benefits package that suits your needs and aspirations.
- Parental and Birthday leave, and give back to your communities through Love-all-Serve-all (LASA) volunteering leave
- A confidential Grabber Assistance Programme to guide and uplift you and your loved ones through life's challenges.
- FlexWork arrangements such as differentiated hours
Full posting text
Lead Software Engineer, Backend - Business Platform
•
Team
Engineering
•
Location
Jakarta, Indonesia
•
Job Type
Full-time
The role at a glance
Get to know the Team
The Business Platform team at Grab focuses on empowering a diverse range of Southeast Asian merchants—from local street stalls to international franchises—by providing them with professional tools via the GrabMerchant Super App and Portal. By leveraging data from billions of monthly transactions, the team delivers insights and innovative features that enhance efficiency and customer engagement, effectively leveling the playing field for smaller businesses.
Operating as a distributed team across Indonesia and Singapore, they prioritize stability and quality to directly impact merchant profitability and ensure that business owners can focus on their core operations.
Get to know the role
We are seeking talented & passionate Engineers to join our team, you will have opportunities to work on multiple backend services as well as participating in merchant immersions, talking directly to the end-users, identifying their challenges and how we can help them in their work life. It is very important that our team members to identify problems, and have the right mindset and skill sets to solve them.
The Day-to-Day Activities
- End-to-End System Ownership: Independently designs, builds, and operates high-quality software systems, ensuring they are secure, reliable, maintainable, and rigorously tested.
- Architectural & Operational Excellence: Applies advanced architectural patterns and infrastructure best practices, while maintaining accountability for post-deployment monitoring and system health.
- Strategic Stakeholder Partnership: Collaborates effectively with both technical and non-technical stakeholders, actively contributing to the entire product lifecycle from initial design to final rollout.
- Process Optimization: Proactively identifies and implements improvements to team workflows and engineering processes to enhance overall efficiency and delivery.
- Mentorship & Team Growth: Acts as a senior leader by mentoring junior engineers and fostering a culture of continuous learning and professional development within the team.
Read more
Skills you need
What Essential Skills You Will Need
- 8+ years of professional software engineering experience, with strong hands-on proficiency in Python and/or Go.
- Deep expertise in designing, building, and maintaining distributed backend architectures and microservices.
- Proven track record with core backend infrastructure, including relational and NoSQL databases, caching layers (e.g., Redis), and message brokers/event streaming (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ).
- Strong expertise in RESTful API design, contract management, and service-to-service communication (e.g., gRPC).
- Solid foundation in system design, high-availability architecture, and performance optimization at scale.
- Practical experience deploying and managing services on modern cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure), adhering to CI/CD and DevOps best practices.
- Proactive learner with strong ownership, keeping pace with emerging backend patterns and AI technologies.
- Hands-on experience building Generative AI applications or AI Agent workflows using frameworks such as LangChain, LangGraph, or LlamaIndex.
- Practical knowledge of RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines and vector databases (e.g., Pinecone, Milvus, Qdrant, pgvector).
Read more
What we offer
About Grab and our workplace
Grab is Southeast Asia's leading superapp. From getting your favourite meals delivered to helping you manage your finances and getting around town hassle-free, we've got your back with everything. In Grab, purpose gives us joy and habits build excellence, while harnessing the power of Technology and AI to deliver the mission of driving Southeast Asia forward by economically empowering everyone, with heart, hunger, honour, and humility.
Read more
Life at Grab
Life at Grab
We care about your well-being at Grab, here are some of the global benefits we offer:
- We have your back with Term Life Insurance and comprehensive Medical Insurance.
- With GrabFlex, create a benefits package that suits your needs and aspirations.
- Celebrate moments that matter in life with loved ones through Parental and Birthday leave, and give back to your communities through Love-all-Serve-all (LASA) volunteering leave
- We have a confidential Grabber Assistance Programme to guide and uplift you and your loved ones through life's challenges.
- Balancing personal commitments and life's demands are made easier with our FlexWork arrangements such as differentiated hours
What We Stand For At Grab
We are committed to building an inclusive and equitable workplace that provides equal opportunity for Grabbers to grow and perform at their best. We consider all candidates fairly and equally regardless of nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, age, gender, family commitments, physical and mental impairments or disabilities, and other attributes that make them unique.
Read more
What’s it like to work at Grab?
Play video
Meet the Engineering team
From software developers to security specialists, our people thrive on experimenting with fresh ideas and implementing them for users. Solve real-world problems, find purpose in your work and work across borders to help drive Southeast Asia forward.
Engineering at Grab is synonymous with holding yourself accountable for impacting the lives of millions of partners, be it drivers, passengers or merchants. Every line of code can have a big positive or negative impact on our consumers, which is why every little change requires thorough thought processes and a deep understanding of systems and scale.
“
”
Learning within the Engineering team never stops, especially with the sponsored learning resources. You need to stay curious and be willing to take ownership to join and succeed in the team.
“
”
Everybody at Grab understands the necessity of balance. We all believe that what we’re doing here is important, we’re genuinely changing people’s lives for the better, but we also understand that this shouldn’t come at the cost of your personal life.
“
”
The Application Process
What can you expect when you apply for a role at Grab? Here’s what our hiring process looks like.
Step 1: Apply.
We have a range of open roles from Marketing to Engineering and everything in between. Find the one that’s best for you and show us why you’re our next teammate.
Step 2: Getting to know you.
Next, you’ll have a video or phone interview with one of our recruiters to chat about you, the role, and your past work experiences.
Step 3: Testing, testing… 123.
Some roles might require assessments and/or a technical competency interview. For other roles, there might be an additional interview – speak with your recruiter for application details.
Step 4: Is it a culture match?
Finally, we’ll find out how we fit together, if your career vision aligns with our mission, how you embody the 4 H's, and your working style and personality.