Principal Backend Engineer (Fintech)

TL;DR

Principal Backend Engineer (Go): Shape technical and product direction for hirify.global's high-scale banking platform with an accent on architecture, scalability, and distributed systems. Focus on leading cross-team initiatives, driving high-impact improvements in reliability and performance, and mentoring senior engineers.

Location: Cardiff, London or Remote (UK) with ad hoc meetings in London

Company

Digital bank offering personal/business accounts, savings, investments, pensions, and credit products in the UK.

What you will do

• Partner with leaders to shape company-wide technical and product strategy across 100+ engineer collectives.
• Remain hands-on with coding and architecture in high-risk, complex areas.
• Identify high-leverage opportunities and mobilise teams around impactful problems.
• Lead architectural direction for complex systems, ensuring alignment and reuse.
• Uphold technical excellence, driving improvements in quality, reliability, and scalability.
• Mentor and develop senior engineers and future leaders.

Requirements

• Track record leading complex, high-impact systems across multiple teams/domains
• Multi-year strategic thinking with strong technical judgment and business awareness
• Experience with large-scale backend, distributed, or data-intensive systems
• Comfort in ambiguous spaces, influencing senior stakeholders
• Data-driven focus on outcomes and impact
• Experience mentoring and raising engineering standards

Culture & Benefits

• Flexible working hours and distributed working within the UK
• £1,000 annual learning budget for books, courses, conferences
• MacBook provided plus extra home office setup for remote workers
• Base salary + performance incentives + share options + comprehensive benefits
• Visa sponsorship and relocation support to the UK

Hiring process

• Informal recruiter call
• Initial call
• System design interview
• Take-home task or pair coding exercise
• Final interview with behavioural and leadership components