Technical Lead - Backend

Posted:
10/7/2024, 4:02:07 AM

Location(s):
England, United Kingdom ⋅ London, England, United Kingdom

Experience Level(s):
Senior

Field(s):
Software Engineering

Workplace Type:
Hybrid

We're seeking an experienced Backend Tech Lead to take charge of one of our backend Golang teams. The ideal candidate is a highly skilled software engineer who thrives in leading a team and can help deliver the projects that will shape the future of our organisation. We're on a path to build the world's most impactful, fully-automated and holistic financial advice solution, and we need your help to deliver it to as many people as possible.

About Octopus Money

At Octopus Money, we’re on a mission to make money advice accessible to all – because the right advice can turn your life dreams into reality.

The facts are alarming: half of Brits reach retirement age without enough money to live the life they want, financial stress is a leading cause of poor mental health and only 8% of us have access to 1-to-1 advice.

There’s plenty of information out there, but most of us just wish that someone we trust would tell us what to do with our money!

With Octopus, you get a personalised plan and a friendly expert to help you make it happen. We combine advisers, coaches and technology to understand your situation and recommend the right steps for your savings, investments, pensions and more. Then, we make it easy to invest in a custom portfolio, managed by experts.

We believe everyone deserves personal, 1-to-1 advice with their money.

The role and opportunity 

The Backend Tech Lead plays a pivotal role in the engineering team, serving as a bridge between technical strategy and execution. Reporting to the Engineering Manager, the Backend Tech Lead is responsible for guiding the technical direction of projects, ensuring alignment with business objectives, and fostering a culture of collaboration and innovation within the team.

Our back-end API service layer is written in Go following a documentation first mindset. We use a service oriented architecture to enable extensive unit-testing with generated mocks. Our services are deployed via a CI/CD pipeline to our AWS cloud environments.

As a Tech Lead you will still spend 60-80% of your time writing code as part of the Scrum team but you will also have additional responsibilities.

You will be responsible for:

  • Code Development and Review:
    • Able to demonstrate excellent Go development skills, with the ability to write high-quality, easily testable code.
    • Champion software engineering best practices, including automated tests, code refactoring, and code reviews where appropriate.
    • Ensure adherence to coding standards, security guidelines, and compliance requirements.
  • Project Management:
    • Drive the execution of projects from conception to delivery, ensuring milestones are met.
    • Coordinate with Product Managers to prioritise features and tasks, balancing technical debt and business needs.
  • Team Collaboration:
    • Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions, working closely with Product and Design Leads.
  • Technical Leadership:
    • Provide technical guidance, mentorship, and line management of 2-3 engineers.
    • Foster a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning within the team.
    • Encourage innovation and experimentation, promoting a culture of adaptability and resilience.
  • Technical Strategy:
    • Contribute to the development of technical roadmaps and long-term strategies, aligning with business objectives.
    • Stay updated on industry trends and emerging technologies, identifying opportunities for innovation and improvement.
    • Evaluate new tools, frameworks, and technologies, making recommendations for adoption based on technical and business considerations.

About You

Collaborative and a great team player
We’ve built a great team of top performers, and you’ll need to work with others from across the business to identify problems, agree solutions and implement changes

Problem solver at heart with an analytical mindset
You should be someone who gets excited by complex problems and can find creative ways to solve them no matter what your level of knowledge and experience with the subject matter. You should be able to digest complexity and develop a plan to move forward, without losing sight of the important details.

Goal driven and not afraid to get stuck in
We like to set ambitious goals and find creative ways to hit them, even if that means rolling up our sleeves and doing manual tasks before we’ve managed to fully automate them. You should have a bias towards action and getting things done.

Knowledge and Experience required

  • Over five years of expertise in software development, specialising in back-end systems with a strong proficiency in Go
  • Delivered cloud-based REST API solutions
  • Demonstrable experience architecting back-end business platforms with a knowledge of common patterns
  • Proven track record of technical leadership, preferably in a fast-paced environment
  • Strong communication skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across teams
  • Ideally educated to Bachelor's or Master's degree level in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Nice to have (but not essential)

  • Fintech industry experience
  • SaaS knowledge and experience
  • Microservice and integrating distributed systems with messaging and event driven architectures 
  • AWS Architecture experience

In return for your contribution we offer a base salary of £90,000 - £110,000 DOE + benefits

Please note, as a regulated business we are required to run background checks for all employees which covers adverse financial and unspent convictions. These will only take place upon a successful job offer.

About Octopus Group 

Octopus is a group of companies which invests in the people, ideas and industries that will help to change the world. We collectively believe that the companies serving two of our most important needs – our financial wellbeing and our planet’s future – are failing. And we want that to change. We want everything we do, whether that’s in financial services or energy supply, to have a positive impact on the people it touches. The energy supply business - Octopus Energy is the #1 rated UK energy supply business, and the only one to be recommended by Which? three years in a row.

Perks & Benefits

Make a difference
We're on a mission to help millions of people improve their finances. Seeing the impact we can make on our client's lives is deeply rewarding, and motivates the whole team to keep doing more to improve our service. Our client feedback is extremely positive, with a rating of 4.8 out of 5 on Vouchedfor.

Flexible working
We currently operate a hybrid model which is a mix of office and remote. You'll have the option of working from home 2 days per week (Monday and Friday) with the remainder from our central London office in Holborn.

Work from anywhere
We give an 18 day work from anywhere allowance to swap out the on site days or take some time working from another country. Due to regulations this does not apply to individuals that give regulated financial advice.

Join a great team
We're a diverse team with decades of experience in financial services and a proven track record. We don't like office politics, and believe in treating everyone with transparency and respect.

Rapidly grow your career
We believe in hiring people who are better than us, and giving them opportunities to achieve great things. As we continue to scale up, there will be opportunities for ambitious new joiners to demonstrate their skills and take on bigger roles.

Share incentive plan and team bonus
Being part of Octopus we benefit from the group share incentive plan. In addition, for those who are not commission based we offer a team bonus provided we meet our team goals.

Pension, enhanced parental leave, private medical insurance & other benefits
As an Octopus Money employee you'll get access to a company pension, enhanced parental leave, PMI and other benefits to make sure you're healthy and happy, now and in the future! 

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We believe in equal financial education for everybody, no matter their background.  We pride ourselves on building an inclusive working environment where diversity is celebrated.

We do not and never will discriminate on the basis of race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, disability status or any other protected characteristic.