Backend Engineer

London-based backend engineering role in a growing technology startup. Hybrid work arrangement: 1 day per week in London. The role involves ownership of backend systems, contributing to architecture decisions and helping shape platform development as the business scales. Core requirements: strong, recent commercial Java, Kotlin, and Spring Boot experience; 2+ years in a technology startup or scale-up; experience in smaller teams with ownership; solid understanding of backend architecture, APIs, databases and distributed systems; ability to discuss technical decisions and trade-offs; comfortable taking a problem from requirements through design, development, testing and production. Stand-out qualities include designing backend services, defending architectural decisions, solving scalability/reliability/performance problems, working with microservices and event-driven architectures, taking ownership of features, and collaborating with product teams and stakeholders. The opportunity emphasizes influence over product direction. The company offers a salary up to £100,000 plus share options and requires one day per week in London. Visa sponsorship is not provided. If you’re building backend systems with Java, Kotlin and Spring Boot and have startup/scale-up experience, this is a good fit.