Technical Lead (Ruby on Rails, AI-Native)

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, which manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Technical Lead (Ruby on Rails, AI-Native) based in India.

We are seeking an experienced, hands-on Technical Lead to shape engineering culture, establish technical standards, and guide a distributed development team in an AI-native environment. In this part-time leadership role, you will focus on team coherence, code quality, technical excellence, and developer mentorship rather than coding volume. You will help define how engineers collaborate, make technical decisions, and leverage AI-powered development tools to build and maintain reliable production systems. Working closely with a small team of developers across multiple countries and time zones, you will promote consistent engineering practices and strengthen the overall development culture. This is an opportunity to influence the technical direction of a growing travel technology business while maintaining flexibility through a 50% time commitment. The role is fully remote and designed for an experienced technical leader who values ownership, mentorship, and sustainable engineering practices.

Accountabilities

• Establish and maintain a strong engineering culture, defining how the development team collaborates, communicates, and approaches technical challenges.

• Set and uphold technical standards for code quality, maintainability, reliability, and consistency across the development environment.

• Champion AI-native software development practices, ensuring developers use tools such as Cursor and Claude Code effectively and responsibly throughout the engineering lifecycle.

• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to a team of four developers, supporting their professional growth, problem-solving abilities, and engineering performance.

• Guide architectural and technical decisions, applying sound engineering judgment to ensure solutions are scalable, maintainable, and aligned with business objectives.

• Review AI-assisted development workflows and outputs, maintaining high standards for code quality, testing, security, and production readiness.

• Establish clear development processes, coding conventions, review practices, and collaboration standards to ensure consistency across a distributed team.

• Support knowledge sharing and communication across developers working in different countries and time zones, fostering accountability and team cohesion.

• Work closely with company leadership to take ownership of engineering culture and technical team development, allowing leadership to focus on broader business priorities.

• Promote continuous improvement by identifying opportunities to strengthen engineering workflows, developer productivity, and the effective adoption of emerging AI technologies.

Requirements:

• At least 8 years of professional experience building, maintaining, and delivering production software systems.

• Strong professional experience with Ruby on Rails, including at least 6 years of production-level experience.

• Previous experience leading or mentoring a small engineering team, with the ability to establish standards, guide developers, and encourage strong technical practices.

• Excellent technical judgment and deep code-review capabilities, with the ability to assess architectural decisions, identify weaknesses, and maintain high engineering standards.

• Daily hands-on experience with AI-native development tools, particularly Cursor and Claude Code, including familiarity with plan mode and AI-assisted coding workflows.

• Strong understanding of how to integrate AI-powered tools into software development while maintaining code quality, reliability, maintainability, and appropriate engineering oversight.

• Ability to define and implement technical standards, development processes, and collaborative practices that improve consistency and team performance.

• Experience working in remote-first, geographically distributed teams, with the ability to coordinate effectively across multiple countries and time zones.

• Strong communication, mentoring, and interpersonal skills, with the ability to provide constructive feedback and build trust within a distributed engineering team.

• A proactive, ownership-oriented mindset, with the confidence to make technical decisions, resolve challenges, and establish a cohesive engineering culture.

• Ability to work independently and effectively within a part-time arrangement of approximately 4–5 hours per day, Monday through Friday.

• Excellent internet connectivity and flexibility to attend occasional meetings aligned with UK business needs. Working UK hours is not required.

• Legal authorization to work in your current country of residence.

Benefits:

• Competitive part-time compensation (50% time commitment):

  • UK-based candidates: £42,500–£57,500 per year.

  • Poland-based candidates: €52,000–€71,000 per year.

  • LATAM-based candidates (Colombia, Argentina, Brazil): $43,000–$57,000 USD per year.

  • Candidates based in other locations: Compensation open to discussion.

  • Fully remote, globally distributed working environment.

  • Flexible part-time schedule of approximately 4–5 hours per day, Monday through Friday.

  • Opportunity to take on a meaningful technical leadership position without the demands of a full-time commitment.

  • Flexibility for professionals balancing family responsibilities, parenting, consulting engagements, or other professional commitments.

  • Opportunity to shape engineering culture, technical standards, and AI-native development practices.

  • Direct influence on technical direction and team development within an established, profitable travel technology business.

  • Opportunity to mentor developers and contribute to building a permanent, collaborative engineering team.

  • Exposure to modern AI-powered development tools and evolving software engineering practices.

  • International collaboration with developers and stakeholders across different countries and time zones.