Staff Backend Engineer

Location - London hybrid (once per week onsite, minimum twice monthly)

Salary - 130k-160k+ bonus/benefits + equity

Our unicorn client is a fast-growing technology company in the mobility and insurance space. They're looking for a Staff Backend Engineer to take on one of their most senior individual contributor positions, providing hands-on technical leadership while helping define the engineering culture. This is a rare chance to have genuine impact on the technical direction of business-critical, data driven systems with AI at the centre. You’ll work across multiple teams, shaping architecture, setting high standards, mentoring engineers, and collaborating with stakeholders to deliver real user and business value.

The Opportunity

• Drive technical strategy and system architecture across multiple teams.
• Tackle complex engineering challenges end-to-end, delivering the most critical components yourself.
• Champion engineering best practices—from design and implementation to testing, observability, and scaling.
• Collaborate with product, data, and business teams to align priorities and ensure technical solutions meet real business goals.
• Mentor and coach engineers and technical leads, helping them grow both technically and as leaders.
• Act as a technical multiplier—bring clarity to ambiguous problems, unblock teams, and ensure sound decision-making through clear, informed communication.
• Contribute to company-wide technical standards and improve processes and tooling for the broader engineering organisation.

What We’re Looking For

• Proven experience designing and delivering scalable distributed systems, ideally with Python or a mix of statically and dynamically typed languages.
• Strong track record of writing production-quality code with a focus on maintainability, reliability, and performance.
• Experience leading technical direction across multiple teams or projects—aligning engineers without relying on formal authority.
• Ability to partner with senior stakeholders, balancing technical priorities with business needs.
• Hands-on, pragmatic mindset—comfortable diving into code and systems to understand trade-offs and guide delivery.
• Curiosity and a growth mindset—keen to expand into areas like machine learning systems or mobile integration if not already experienced.

Why Join?

• Our client offers a genuinely collaborative, inclusive environment with the freedom to take ownership and deliver impactful work.
• Be part of a company where people support each other and celebrate collective wins.
• Help define technical leadership standards and mentor the next generation of engineers.
• Flexible hybrid working model: at least one day per week in their central London office, with balance for focused home-working.
• Competitive salary, private medical insurance, company equity options, generous holiday allowance, and a broad package of wellbeing benefits.
• Commitment to diversity and inclusion—they welcome applications from all backgrounds.

If you're a senior backend engineer or staff-level individual contributor who wants to combine hands-on coding with strategic technical influence, and you're looking for a role where you can shape both systems and culture, we'd love to hear from you.