Principal Backend Engineer

Teya

Hello. We’re Teya. Teya was founded on a simple belief: local businesses deserve better. They are the cafés, restaurants, salons, shops and entrepreneurs that bring character to our high streets, create jobs and keep communities moving. Yet for too long, financial services has made life harder for them - with clunky tools, poor support and complexity that gets in the way of running a business. Teya exists to change that. We’re building a financial platform for local businesses across Europe - one built around simple tools, thoughtful design and real human support. Our Members rely on us to help them run their business with confidence, and that responsibility shapes the way we work. We move fast. We care about quality. We stay close to the detail. And we believe great performance and genuine hospitality should go hand in hand. If you want to build meaningful products, solve real problems and make a genuine difference for local businesses, we’d love to hear from you YOUR MISSION Small businesses are the backbone of our communities — yet they remain underserved by traditional banks and legacy payment providers. As a Principal Backend Engineer, you will play a defining role in changing that. Your mission is to design and build the resilient, scalable fintech infrastructure that underpins our most critical business initiatives. This isn’t about owning a single service — it’s about owning outcomes. You will drive the technical success of the platforms that power payments, merchant onboarding, transaction processing, and operational workflows across Europe. You’ll operate at the intersection of engineering and business strategy, shaping systems that must be secure, compliant, highly available, and capable of scaling with rapid growth. The decisions you make will directly influence how quickly we can launch new products, enter new markets, and serve thousands of merchants. This role goes beyond technical leadership. You will define and evolve the architectural foundations that multiple teams depend on, bringing clarity to ambiguity and ensuring our most important initiatives succeed. WHAT YOU’LL DO * Own and drive the architecture behind our most critical platforms, ensuring they scale with the business and unlock new capabilities * Design and evolve high-scale, cloud-native systems powering payments and merchant experiences * Lead the development of resilient, secure, and compliant services for high-volume transaction processing * Shape and drive adoption of modern backend practices (Java 17/21, Spring Boot 3, Kotlin, clean architecture) * Architect event-driven systems (Kafka) that enable scalable, decoupled domains across teams * Define and enforce standards for API-first development (REST/gRPC) and domain-driven design (DDD) * Set the bar for availability, performance, fault tolerance, and observability across critical systems * Partner deeply with Product, Data, and leadership to translate business priorities into scalable technical strategy * Lead cross-organisational initiatives that are essential to company growth and market expansion * Influence engineering direction through hands-on contribution, design leadership, and mentorship * Bring structure to ambiguity across technical, regulatory, and operational domains WHAT YOU BRING * 8+ years of experience building and operating distributed, production-grade backend systems * Proven track record operating at Senior Staff or Principal level, driving architecture across multiple teams or domains * Deep expertise in Java (17+), Spring Boot, and modern backend engineering practices * Strong experience with microservices, event-driven architecture, and asynchronous systems * Experience building systems for high throughput, low latency, and reliability, ideally in fintech or transaction-heavy environments * Strong grounding in system design, data structures, and performance trade-offs * Hands-on experience with AWS, Docker, and Kubernetes in production environments * Proven ability to implement observability, resilience patterns, and CI/CD best practices * Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence and align stakeholders * A track record of mentoring senior engineers and leading through ambiguity   The Perks * We trust you, so we offer flexible working hours, as long it suits both you and your team; * Physical and mental health support through our partnership with GymPass giving free access to over 1,500 gyms in the UK, 1-1 therapy, meditation sessions, digital fitness and nutrition apps; * Our company offers extended and improved maternity and paternity leave choices, giving employees more flexibility and support; * Cycle-to-Work Scheme; * Health and Life Insurance; * Pension Scheme; * 25 days of Annual Leave (+ Bank Holidays); * Office snacks every day; * Friendly, comfortable and informal office environment in Central London. Teya is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or background can thrive and do their best work. We believe that a diverse team leads to better ideas, stronger outcomes, and a more supportive workplace for all. If you require any reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process whether for interviews, assessments, or other parts of the application—we encourage you to let us know. We are committed to ensuring that every candidate has a fair and accessible experience with us.

Teya

Hello. We’re Teya. Teya was founded on a simple belief: local businesses deserve better. They are the cafés, restaurants, salons, shops and entrepreneurs that bring character to our high streets, create jobs and keep communities moving. Yet for too long, financial services has made life harder for them - with clunky tools, poor support and complexity that gets in the way of running a business. Teya exists to change that. We’re building a financial platform for local businesses across Europe - one built around simple tools, thoughtful design and real human support. Our Members rely on us to help them run their business with confidence, and that responsibility shapes the way we work. We move fast. We care about quality. We stay close to the detail. And we believe great performance and genuine hospitality should go hand in hand. If you want to build meaningful products, solve real problems and make a genuine difference for local businesses, we’d love to hear from you YOUR MISSION Small businesses are the backbone of our communities — yet they remain underserved by traditional banks and legacy payment providers. As a Principal Backend Engineer, you will play a defining role in changing that. Your mission is to design and build the resilient, scalable fintech infrastructure that underpins our most critical business initiatives. This isn’t about owning a single service — it’s about owning outcomes. You will drive the technical success of the platforms that power payments, merchant onboarding, transaction processing, and operational workflows across Europe. You’ll operate at the intersection of engineering and business strategy, shaping systems that must be secure, compliant, highly available, and capable of scaling with rapid growth. The decisions you make will directly influence how quickly we can launch new products, enter new markets, and serve thousands of merchants. This role goes beyond technical leadership. You will define and evolve the architectural foundations that multiple teams depend on, bringing clarity to ambiguity and ensuring our most important initiatives succeed. WHAT YOU’LL DO * Own and drive the architecture behind our most critical platforms, ensuring they scale with the business and unlock new capabilities * Design and evolve high-scale, cloud-native systems powering payments and merchant experiences * Lead the development of resilient, secure, and compliant services for high-volume transaction processing * Shape and drive adoption of modern backend practices (Java 17/21, Spring Boot 3, Kotlin, clean architecture) * Architect event-driven systems (Kafka) that enable scalable, decoupled domains across teams * Define and enforce standards for API-first development (REST/gRPC) and domain-driven design (DDD) * Set the bar for availability, performance, fault tolerance, and observability across critical systems * Partner deeply with Product, Data, and leadership to translate business priorities into scalable technical strategy * Lead cross-organisational initiatives that are essential to company growth and market expansion * Influence engineering direction through hands-on contribution, design leadership, and mentorship * Bring structure to ambiguity across technical, regulatory, and operational domains WHAT YOU BRING * 8+ years of experience building and operating distributed, production-grade backend systems * Proven track record operating at Senior Staff or Principal level, driving architecture across multiple teams or domains * Deep expertise in Java (17+), Spring Boot, and modern backend engineering practices * Strong experience with microservices, event-driven architecture, and asynchronous systems * Experience building systems for high throughput, low latency, and reliability, ideally in fintech or transaction-heavy environments * Strong grounding in system design, data structures, and performance trade-offs * Hands-on experience with AWS, Docker, and Kubernetes in production environments * Proven ability to implement observability, resilience patterns, and CI/CD best practices * Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence and align stakeholders * A track record of mentoring senior engineers and leading through ambiguity   The Perks * We trust you, so we offer flexible working hours, as long it suits both you and your team; * Health Insurance; * Physical and mental health support through our partnership with MyFitness; * 25 days of Annual leave (+ Bank Holidays); * Possibility to visit other Teya offices to meet colleagues in instances when travel is safe and appropriate; * Friday lunch in the office; * Friendly, comfortable and high-end work equipment and informal office environment; * Hybrid work mode policy. Teya is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or background can thrive and do their best work. We believe that a diverse team leads to better ideas, stronger outcomes, and a more supportive workplace for all. If you require any reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process whether for interviews, assessments, or other parts of the application—we encourage you to let us know. We are committed to ensuring that every candidate has a fair and accessible experience with us.

Hawk-Eye Innovations

Principal Java Engineer - Backend Platform Salary: £76,340 - £100,340 Per Annum Contract: Full-Time, Permanent Location: Hybrid - minimum 2 days per week in office, Basingstoke/London/Bristol ABOUT THE ROLE The Principal Software Engineer (Full-Stack, Backend-leaning) is a senior engineer responsible for the backend architecture, data pipelines, and API layer of a new sports technology product, while remaining capable of contributing to frontend development as needed. This role sits within a small, fast-moving product engineering team and requires someone comfortable owning end-to-end technical delivery across the stack, with backend and data work as the primary focus. WHAT YOU’LL BUILD You will be a core contributor to a new backend platform being built from scratch. The work spans the full data journey - from ingestion at the edge through to storage, transformation, and delivery to end users. Key areas of focus include: * Low-latency data pipelines that ingest and process live sports tracking data, with strict latency requirements for time-critical outputs delivered to coaches and analysts in near real-time. * Event-driven processing using Kafka for streaming data and control messages between on-site devices and cloud services, handling both fast-path live outputs and asynchronous post-processing workflows via SQS and AWS Batch. * Cloud infrastructure on AWS, including Greengrass for edge-to-cloud orchestration, S3 for video and data storage, and Lambda for lightweight processing tasks. * Data transformation and aggregation layers that normalise tracking outputs, store them in a data lake, and make them available to downstream consumers via clean API contracts. * REST and WebSocket APIs that serve both a live data product for immediate consumption and an insights portal for historical analysis and performance comparison. * Observability and reliability - instrumentation, logging, and tracing are built in from the start, not bolted on. The platform needs to run 24/7 without on-site support. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES * Design and build backend services and APIs (REST/WebSocket) supporting data ingestion, transformation, and delivery to frontend and downstream consumers, with particular attention to latency and throughput given real-time processing requirements. * Own data storage and pipeline architecture, including integration with streaming/event infrastructure. * Implement authentication and authorisation in line with the team's chosen cloud identity and access management approach. * Provide technical direction and review for frontend development (React/TypeScript), working closely with frontend engineers to align on approach, component contracts, and data shapes - this is a collaboration and oversight function rather than day-to-day frontend delivery. * Collaborate closely with computer vision/data science engineers to define and consume data contracts. * Participate in technical decision-making for a product in active development, including architecture choices with long-term implications for scale, latency, and maintainability. * Contribute to technical leadership of the wider engineering team, given the seniority of this role. SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE * Strong backend engineering background with production experience in Java (required). * Demonstrated experience building low-latency, high-throughput systems - this is a core requirement, not a nice-to-have. * Working knowledge of a modern frontend framework such as React/TypeScript, sufficient to review and direct frontend work rather than deliver it independently. * Experience with cloud infrastructure and event-driven architectures (e.g. Kafka or equivalent streaming technology). * Experience designing and evolving API contracts (OpenAPI or similar) in a fast-moving, still-evolving product environment. * Familiarity with modern cloud identity and access management approaches (e.g. AWS Cognito or equivalent) is a plus. * Strong communication skills - able to work directly with product and cross-functional stakeholders, and to mentor or direct engineers outside their own core discipline. * Comfortable with ambiguity: this is a build-phase product with evolving scope and infrastructure decisions still being finalised. BENEFITS AND PERKS * 25 days annual leave (excluding bank holidays) * Enhanced pension scheme with 5% matching * Hybrid working model * Complimentary Unmind wellbeing app * Onsite gym (Basingstoke) * Access to sporting events and tickets * Sony Group Company discounts EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER Hawk-Eye is committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse workplace. We ensure all employees are treated fairly, regardless of gender, marital status, race, nationality, religion, age, disability, or union membership. We value diversity and strive to create an environment where everyone can reach their full potential. APPLY TODAY If you are passionate about building high-performance backend systems and want to work on real-time data products at scale, we would love to hear from you.