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; * Meal Allowance; * 25 days of Annual leave (+ Bank holidays); * Public Transportation Card; * Frequent team events & activities in the office and outside; * Office snacks every day; * Friendly, comfortable and informal office environment. 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.

Okta

Secure Every Identity, from AI to Human Identity is the key to unlocking the potential of AI. Okta secures AI by building the trusted, neutral infrastructure that enables organizations to safely embrace this new era. This work requires a relentless drive to solve complex challenges with real-world stakes. We are looking for builders and owners who operate with speed and urgency and execute with excellence. This is an opportunity to do career-defining work. We're all in on this mission. If you are too, let's talk. We’re redefining Privileged Access Management (PAM) from the ground up, purpose-built for Cloud, SaaS, Databases, Containers, and any virtualized environment. Our mission is to simplify and secure workforce access with seamless, secure-by-default workflows that adapt dynamically to modern infrastructure. We eliminate standing privileges, enforce least privilege, and embed Zero Trust principles into every access workflow by default. ABOUT THE ROLE We are seeking a Principal Backend Engineer (P5) to serve as the technical leader and compass for our newly established engineering pod in India. Operating at the intersection of identity, networking, and security infrastructure, you will be responsible for tackling highly complex, vaguely specified problems without day-to-day oversight. In this role, you will champion the technical execution of your team. You will lead the design and implementation of secure database and network device connectors (routers, switches, firewalls) on top of our core Zero Standing Privileges (ZSP) platform. You will work closely with our local Technical Team Lead to mentor mid-level engineers, while collaborating closely with global Tech Leads to ensure architectural alignment. WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING * Lead Technical Strategy & Execution: Turn high-level, complex PAM and network access problems into clear, modular technical designs that your team can execute. * Own Connector Ecosystems: Design, architect, and optimize resilient connector plugins for diverse database environments (SaaS, NoSQL, Relational) and complex network infrastructure using our existing core platform frameworks. * Champion Code Quality & Security: Set the standard for clean, secure, and performant backend development in Go. Lead deep, constructive code reviews with a focus on mentoring and growth. * Collaborate Globally, Execute Locally: Partner with global Technical Leads in Tel Aviv to review major architectural decisions, ensuring a unified product strategy while maintaining high velocity and local autonomy. * On-Call & Product Support: Actively participate in the global ongoing on-call and support rotations, taking pride in the operational health of the entire platform. WHAT YOU’LL BRING TO THE ROLE * 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a proven track record of acting as a technical leader or Principal/Staff level Individual Contributor (IC). * Deep Domain Expertise: Significant experience in the Privileged Access Management (PAM) or Identity & Access Management (IAM) space. Experience with resource discovery, credential rotation, or agentless communication is highly preferred. * Strong Networking Foundations: Strong experience working with networking protocols (SSH, Telnet, SNMP, router/switch configurations) or integrating with legacy and modern database infrastructures. * Distributed Architecture Mastery: Extensive experience building high-scale, secure backend services, microservices, and event-driven workflows. * Hands-on Go Expertise: Strong engineering proficiency in Go (or deep backend expertise in a similar language like C++/Rust/Java, with a proven eagerness to work extensively in Go). * Cloud-Native Infrastructure: Solid understanding of AWS (IAM, SQS, Lambda), Kubernetes, and building highly resilient agentless systems. * Extreme Ownership Mindset: The ability to navigate ambiguity, make pragmatic trade-offs under tight deadlines, and guide a local team of developers (P2/P3) to success. EXTRA CREDIT IF YOU HAVE: * Prior engineering experience at enterprise security companies such as CyberArk, Delinea, or direct PAM/IAM competitors. * In-depth background with Graph databases (e.g., ArangoDB) or policy engines (e.g., OPA). * Experience bootstrapping or leading technical direction for highly autonomous remote engineering pods. OUR TECH STACK * Language: Go * Infra: AWS, Serverless, Kubernetes * Data: Postgres (RDS), ArangoDB (NoSQL) * DevOps: GitHub Actions, Docker, Terraform, Helm   L1-Hybrid P24972_3494398   The Okta Experience * Supporting Your Well-Being  * Driving Social Impact  * Developing Talent and Fostering Connection + Community We are intentional about connection. Our global community, spanning over 20 offices worldwide, is united by a drive to innovate. Your journey begins with an immersive, in-person onboarding experience designed to accelerate your impact and connect you to our mission and team from day one. Okta is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, ancestry, marital status, age, physical or mental disability, or status as a protected veteran. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and convictions records, consistent with applicable laws. If reasonable accommodation is needed to complete any part of the job application, interview process, or onboarding please use this Form to request an accommodation. Notice for New York City Applicants & Employees: Okta may use Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT), as defined by New York City Local Law 144, that use artificial intelligence, machine learning, or other automated processes to assist in our recruitment and hiring process. In accordance with NYC Local Law 144, if you are an applicant or employee residing in New York City, please click here to view our full NYC AEDT Notice.