Lead Software Engineer

Lead Software Engineer

London (hybrid)

90k to 105k

We’re partnering with an ambitious London-based payments start-up looking to hire a hands-on Lead Software Engineer to help shape the next generation of their platform as they scale.

This is a high-impact opportunity for a senior engineering leader who enjoys operating across architecture, platform engineering, product delivery, and technical strategy in a fast-moving environment.

You’ll play a key role in defining engineering standards, influencing product direction, and building scalable systems capable of supporting rapid growth within a modern payments ecosystem.

The Opportunity

Joining at an exciting stage of growth, you’ll work closely with founders, product teams, and engineers to design and deliver a highly scalable payments platform using modern cloud-native technologies.

This role combines:

hands-on engineering,

technical leadership,

architecture ownership,

and mentoring responsibilities.

You’ll be expected to remain close to the code while driving best practice across the wider engineering function.

Key Responsibilities

Define and evolve platform architecture across mobile, backend, and cloud infrastructure

Lead engineering design decisions and establish scalable development standards

Build and optimise high-performance backend services using Node.js

Drive mobile architecture and delivery using React Native

Own AWS infrastructure strategy, scalability, reliability, and security

Work closely with product and leadership teams to shape technical roadmap

Champion engineering excellence, DevOps culture, CI/CD, and automation

Explore and implement modern AI-assisted engineering tooling and workflows

Required Experience

We’re looking for a strong technical leader with recent experience of operating at Technical Architect, Principal Engineer or Staff Engineer level, with experience building scalable products within start-up or high-growth environments.

Tech stack expertise - deep backend engineering expertise using NodeJS is needed, Typescript, familiarity with React Native, and strong knowledge around AWS infrastructure and cloud-native architecture.

Consumer product intuition for the demographic - consumer fintech experience ideally, but even adjacent experience with consumer apps focused on Millennials and Gen Z would be a signal of the product intuition sought.

Startup mindset - looking for someone comfortable operating in a small, early-stage team, where they'll help own the tech and will be comfortable currently being without a senior peer to validate decisions against (prior early-stage experience would be a strong signal).

Architecture ownership - wanting candidates who've made architecture decisions at meaningful scale, so has a profile that evidence of that kind of decision making.

AI as core leverage - LangChain, LangGraph, MCP, Claude Code, spec-driven development, prompt versioning at production etc., rather than just using AI as a productivity tool.

What’s on Offer

Opportunity to shape architecture from an early stage

High ownership and autonomy

Modern engineering environment

Fast-growing fintech business with strong leadership backing

Competitive salary + equity potential

Hybrid working in London