Backend Tech Lead

Octopus Money is hiring a Tech Lead, with a speciality in Backend development, for one of our fullstack teams. 

From a technical perspective, we’re looking for a highly skilled software engineer with a proven track record of delivering quality products. 

From a core perspective, we’re looking for someone to lead their team by example - fostering a culture of collaboration and continuous improvement among our development team. Your guidance will empower our team members to excel and contribute their best work.

The role and opportunity 

The Tech Lead plays a pivotal role in the engineering team, serving as a bridge between technical strategy and execution. Reporting to our Engineering Manager, the 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 backend tech stack is written in Go, using a combination of DynamoDB and Postgres and hosted using AWS. Our frontend is built with React and TypeScript, and our mobile app is built with React Native.

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

Day to day you will be responsible for:

• Technical Leadership
• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to engineers, ensuring best practices and coding standards are followed
• Hold developmental 1:1s with reports focusing on career development
• Line Management of a full stack team, 2 front-end (TypeScript) and 2 back-end (Go) developers
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate business requirements into technical solutions, working closely with Product and Design Leads
• 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
• Monitor project progress, identify risks, and implement mitigation strategies as needed
• Team Collaboration
• Foster a culture of collaboration, knowledge sharing, and continuous learning within the team
• Facilitate effective communication between engineers, product stakeholders, and other teams
• Encourage innovation and experimentation, promoting a culture of adaptability and resilience
• Code Quality and Review
• Oversee code reviews, providing constructive feedback and guidance to maintain high-quality code
• Champion software engineering best practices, including test-driven development, code refactoring, and code reviews where appropriate
• Ensure adherence to coding standards, security guidelines, and compliance requirements
• 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

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.

Skills and Experience required

• 5+ years of experience in software development, with a focus on back-end development. Go is ideal, but similar typed backend technologies are also welcome
• 1+ years of experience leading engineering teams
• Comfortable with architecting systems
• Comfortable integrating with external APIs and systems
• Proven track record of technical leadership and project management, preferably in a fast-paced environment
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate effectively across teams
• Ideally hold a Bachelor's or Master's degree level in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field or comparable experience

Nice to have

• Experience with TypeScript and/or React
• Experience with AWS
• Previous Fintech experience
• Previous experience managing engineering teams

Success looks like this at Octopus Money

• You can handle ambiguity. You’re comfortable using judgement to create structure and applying first principle thinking
• You’re someone who ‘chases the ball’, rather than just hoping others pick it up. We look for determination, resilience and a healthy dose of optimism  
• You thrive in a fast paced environment. You’re open to course correct when needed, and challenge yourself and others to

About Octopus Money

🐙 We’re on a mission to become the most recommended financial services business in the UK 🐙

Money shapes every part of life. Yet most people never get the support they need:

• Half of Brits reach retirement age without enough to live the life they want
• Financial stress is a leading cause of poor mental health
• Only 8% of people have access to 1-to-1 financial advice

There’s no shortage of information. What people actually need is clarity, guidance and a plan that makes sense for them.

That’s where we come in.

Octopus Money brings together financial planning, investment expertise and smart technology so people can understand their options and take action with confidence. We help people build a clear plan for their savings, investments and pensions and make investing simple with managed portfolios built by experts. We also support employers who want their teams to feel more secure and in control. 

Some people need regulated advice. Others need coaching. Many need both at different points in life. Our service adapts to what each person needs. 

We believe everyone deserves money support that works for real life.

We value people who: 

Make every conversation matter
You care about how you make people feel. You communicate clearly, listen well and build trust with customers and colleagues. You want every interaction to move things forward.

Move with urgency and focus
You like getting stuck in. You care about making progress, not perfection. You stay focused on what matters, learn quickly and find smart ways to keep things moving.

Own it
You take responsibility for your work and the outcomes it creates. You’re comfortable solving problems, making decisions and tackling challenges head on. You hold yourself to a high standard and want to make a real impact.

What’s in it for you

In return for your contribution we offer a base salary of £90,000 - £100,000 DOE + benefits

Where we work

We believe in the power of in-person collaboration three days a week, but we also know people need flexibility. We give you 6 weeks a year to work away from the office when you need to; whether you want to work abroad, or just need to be at home. 

How we work

Culture starts with the right behaviours at the top. Our leaders are hands on, get stuck in, and see no job as too small. Across the business, we try to strip out unnecessary process wherever we can: people don’t need to join meetings where they’re not needed, and we challenge our teams to regularly question what’s draining their time. We talk openly about ‘stumbles of the week’, and celebrate each other with Inkspiration awards.

We want everyone in our business to see the value of their personal impact, and that’s reflected in individual bonuses. And, we’re an employee owned business, with a Share Incentive Plan.

About Octopus Group 

We're part of Octopus Group, a privately-owned business that's spent 25 years doing things differently. Octopus Group builds businesses designed to outlast it, aiming to leave things a little better for the generations that follow.

That same instinct runs through the whole group:

• Octopus Energy changed how millions of people think about their energy provider, built on fairness, transparency and a genuinely good customer experience
• Octopus Legacy is changing how people plan for the end of life
• amicable is building a better way to go through divorce
• Aurora is rethinking education
• Seccl is building the fintech infrastructure behind modern investing
• Octopus Investments and Octopus Capital back the ideas and businesses of tomorrow

We share that same DNA, doing the same thing in a different corner of people's lives: money.

Octopus Group doesn't just talk about entrepreneurship, the group enables it. Springboard, a program open to anyone however junior or senior, lets people pitch an idea to win funding. A number of businesses have been started this way, founded by former Octopus employees.