Lead Backend Engineer (JVM) - Startup - £100k + Equity

Lead Backend Engineer (Kotlin / JVM) in a B2B FinTech startup

Hands-on, leading a team of 4

Up to £100,000 + Equity + Benefits

Hybrid Remote : 1-3 Days in Central London office

Join a B2B FinTech startup backed by a global bank, that is transforming the financial advisory space. They’ve created a unified, scalable, AI-driven platform that’s moving the industry away from using outdated data storage and communication systems like spreadsheets

As Lead Backend Engineer , you’ll be the technical authority for all backend, architectural and infrastructure decisions . Reporting directly to the CEO, you'll lead and grow a high-performing engineering function, while staying deep in the code as an Engineer.

In this role you will :

• Lead architecture to build scalable, event-driven backend systems
• Own and evolve the cloud and infrastructure stack (Terraform, Kubernetes, GCP)
• Line manage and mentor 4 Engineers, hiring more later in 2025
• Lead daily standups, drive delivery, and maintain a high bar for code quality
• Partner with the CEO on roadmap priorities and hiring strategy
• Be comfortable switching hats. Player / coach, architect, hands-on builder

This isn’t a greenfield 0→1, the foundations are in place. Your challenge is 1→10, 1→100. You’ll be building a system that unlocks the product roadmap, allowing the business to scale with confidence. Think : backend overhaul, introducing messaging layers (Kafka or PubSub), scaling infra, and embedding clean Engineering practices

Tech Stack : Kotlin, Grails, Vert.x, gRPC, microservices, event-driven architecture, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, Kafka, BigQuery, PostgreSQL

Ideal Candidates will have :

No Visa Sponsorship Available

4-stage Interview Process

Please apply with an updated CV displaying your impact & we’ll be in touch!