Tech Lead - Code Plane [IC5]

Who we are

Our mission is to bring clarity and control to the world's most complex codebases. AI is accelerating code creation, but the infrastructure to understand, oversee, and evolve that code hasn't kept pace. Sourcegraph gives engineering organizations full visibility across their systems, precise context for their agents, and the ability to execute coordinated code changes at scale. As agentic development becomes the dominant engineering paradigm, we provide the context layer teams need to take control of their codebase.

With Code Search, Deep Search, MCP, and Agentic Batch Changes, we deliver on that mission today—giving engineering teams and their AI tools the cross-repo context to navigate massive codebases with confidence, and the ability to make changes across hundreds of repositories at once.

Companies like Stripe, Reddit, and Leidos rely on Sourcegraph to ship faster and with higher quality. We're backed by a16z, Sequoia, and Redpoint, and proud to operate as a globally distributed team that values high agency, direct communication, and customer love.

If you want to build the infrastructure that lets every engineering team—and every agent they deploy—operate on their codebase with confidence, join us.

Hours & location

While we hire almost anywhere in the world, we have a preference for someone to reside in Europe or EST for this role. However, if you feel qualified, we welcome you to apply regardless of location. Working hours must overlap with CEST for at least 20 hours/week.

Preferred locations:

• Europe
• EST

Why this job is exciting

The Code Plane team owns the Sourcegraph products that help developers—and the agents working on their behalf—take action on code, at scale, across the world's largest codebases. Think “data plane” and “control plane” for enterprise code: the surfaces where intent becomes code changes across hundreds (or more!) of repositories.

This is a team that builds products that use AI and products for AI. The roadmap, the architecture, and the day-to-day technical decisions all hinge on a solid experience with and a clear-eyed view of what AI models and agents are good at, where they fail, and how to design products around them. A strong handle on and opinion of AI, formed from real-world, hands-on use, not just observation, is a hard requirement for this role.

We're hiring you to be the technical leader around whom this team rallies. Our product surfaces are evolving drastically as agents reshape how software is built, and we are adjusting our engineering teams to match. Code Plane owns high-stakes, fast-moving products at the center of that shift and needs a tech lead who will set technical and product direction, drive the roadmap from issue to shipped, and keep the team unblocked and moving. You are a generalist by choice. You go where the problem is (backend, AI agent, or frontend) and you are who people come to when it crosses a boundary.

Surface areas owned by Code Plane:

• Batch Changes: Our battle-tested execution layer for massive cross-repo changes helps developers automate large-scale code changes across all of an enterprise's repositories.
• Agentic Batch Changes: The frontier agent for code changes at scale. Building on Batch Changes, an outer-loop agent writes code-modification programs and orchestrates coding agents across repositories.
• Code Monitors & Code Insights: Our "signals over code" products that notify based on detected changes and turn codebases into data to back up business decisions with customizable dashboards.
• The src CLI tool: The command-line surface that humans and agents use to automate Sourcegraph in their workflows.

Milestone Expectations

Within one month, you will:

• Build relationships across your team and familiarize yourself with its surface area by running them as a user and an agent would.
• Meet cross-functional partners in Product, Design, Solutions Engineering, and adjacent teams to translate feedback into product roadmap bets.
• Join the team's on-call support rotation.

Within three months, you will:

• Own a meaningful slice of Agentic Batch Changes end-to-end and ship critical pieces yourself.
• Be the technical lead for the team's roadmap, scoping and sequencing projects across product surfaces.
• Strengthen team practices for engineering design, review, testing, and delivery.
• Mentor teammates and build high-trust relationships.

Within six months, you will:

• Be the recognized technical visionary for Code Plane, deferred to on architecture, quality, and product trade-offs.
• Be known across the company as the person who deeply understands customer and agent ecosystem needs.
• Set team direction with conviction backed by evidence, mobilizing engineers to execute.

About you

You are a technical leader and software engineer who sets direction, makes hard architectural trade-offs, and keeps the team moving. You think in terms of outcomes rather than tickets. You have shipped for the agent ecosystem (tools, SDKs, MCP servers, or CLIs designed for non-human callers) and can explain precisely where agents fail based on measured experience.

Key Requirements

• 8+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Fluency across our stack: Go, TypeScript, SvelteKit, React, GraphQL APIs, PostgreSQL, Docker, and Kubernetes in a multi-service environment.
• Strong technical background guiding architecture, code quality, and trade-offs.
• Proven experience building end-user products—ideally developer tools, AI/agent products, or CLIs.
• Experience taking features from idea to shipped in close partnership with Product and Design.
• Experience building surfaces designed for non-human callers (MCP servers, agent SDKs, tool surfaces, or agent-focused CLIs).
• Hands-on experience using and reasoning about coding agents (Amp, Claude Code, Cursor, or similar).
• Async-first communication skills in a globally distributed remote setup.

Strongly Preferred

• Experience orchestrating autonomous work at scale with resilient architectures.
• Experience owning and improving an inherited production service with paying customers.
• Track record of raising engineering standards (testing, code review, AI assistant integration).
• Ability to make architectural calls where no established pattern exists and adapt as evidence evolves.
• Experience listening to customer pain points and turning them into technical bets.
• Past experience as a Team Lead or Tech Lead on a software engineering team.

Level

This job is classified as an IC5 level role.

Compensation

Starting salary for the IC5 pay band across zones:

• Zone 2: $192,000 USD
• Zone 3: $144,000 USD

In addition to cash compensation, Sourcegraph offers equity and comprehensive remote employee benefits.