Role: Backend Engineer

Department: Technology

Reporting To: Engineering Manager

Contract Location: UK

Working Style: Fully flexible remote working model

Hours of Work: Mon - Fri, 9:00 - 17:30

Travel Requirements: None

About Jaja

Our Mission: Empowering our customers to buy, borrow, and build—driven by technology, fuelled by data, and built for the future.

Our Company Values: Care Deeply, Adapt & Thrive, Challenge Everything, Go for It! Own It, Make It Simple.

Jaja is an innovative UK-based consumer finance business, initially launching a digital credit card in 2018, with a pipeline of consumer finance solutions in development. With backing from major private equity funds, Jaja has grown rapidly, recently acquiring a £530m credit card portfolio from the Bank of Ireland and launching a significant partnership with Asda in the UK.

We are on a mission to redefine the consumer finance experience and liberate customers from unnecessary complexity, wasted time, and frustration. Or as we say it, Make It Simple. We aim to delight our customers by making their experience simpler, more enjoyable, and more intelligent—treating them fairly and giving them greater control over their finances.

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to make a significant impact in a growing business on a mission to transform the consumer finance industry forever. Join our Technology team, working in agile squads with passionate colleagues, to deliver top-tier technical solutions for our backend services in a fast-paced environment.

About The Role

As a Backend Engineer, you will deliver a substantial backlog of varied and exciting changes to our consumer finance platform. You will work in agile squads to provide high-quality technical solutions, contributing to a business revolutionising the consumer finance industry.

Key Responsibilities

• Work with product owners to refine, estimate and prioritise Jira tickets
• Attend and contribute to agile ceremonies and platform discussions
• Deliver code that is easy to understand, maintain and test
• Collaborate closely with engineers from other platforms
• Develop and maintain scalable, high-performance RESTful APIs using Java and related technologies (Spring, JPA, Kafka, JUnit).
• Apply design patterns, SOLID principles, and clean code practices.
• Work with relational databases and SQL to ensure efficient data management.
• Design, deploy, own and maintain microservices in a cloud environment (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure).
• Debug complex issues and implement effective solutions.
• Ensure security best practices, including data protection and access control.
• Collaborate with agile teams using practices such as pair programming and code reviews.
• Use project management, source control, and CI tools (e.g., Jira, Git, Jenkins).

About You

We’re seeking passionate individuals who align with our values—caring deeply about customer experience, adapting to challenges, and owning their work to deliver simple, high-quality solutions. The successful candidate must reside in Europe and have the legal right to work in the jurisdiction they live in and meet the following criteria:

Required Skills & Experience

• Enthusiasm to learn and deliver high-quality software.
• Experience in agile teams with practices like pair programming and code reviews.
• Several years of hands-on development experience with Java and related technologies (Spring, JPA, Kafka, JUnit).
• Understanding of design patterns, SOLID, and clean code principles.
• Experience building scalable and high-performance RESTful APIs.
• Knowledge of relational databases and SQL.
• Understanding of microservices architecture and experience deploying/maintaining microservices.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure).
• Strong problem-solving skills for debugging complex issues.
• Good understanding of security best practices (data protection, access control).
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience with tools such as Jira, Git, and Jenkins.

Desired Skills & Experience

• Interest in or experience with DevOps tools (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines).
• Experience with application logging and monitoring tools.
• Understanding of test automation, continuous testing, and test coverage metrics.
• Knowledge of architectural solutions (highly available systems, distributed applications, disaster recovery, automation).

What's in It for You?

• Competitive salary based on industry benchmarking.
• Fully flexible remote hybrid working model.
• Pension Salary Exchange scheme to enhance pension contributions.
• Participation in our annual bonus scheme.
• 25 days annual leave (FTE) plus UK bank holidays (increasing by 1 day per full calendar year worked, up to 30 days).
• An additional day off for your birthday each year.
• Private medical cover through Vitality. (UK only)
• 4x life assurance cover.
• Family-friendly policies with enhanced support.
• Free access to our confidential Employee Assistance Programme.
• Access to company perks, competitions, and recognition schemes.

Jaja Finance Confidential