Principal Backend Engineer

Hello! We're Teya. Teya is a payment and software service provider, headquartered in London serving small, local businesses across Europe. Founded in 2019, we build easy to use, integrated tools that enable our members to accept payments and boost business performance. At Teya we believe small, local businesses are the lifeblood of our communities. We’re here because we don’t believe there’s a level playing field that gives small businesses with a fighting chance against the giants of the high street. We’re here because we see banks and legacy service providers making things harder for them. We don’t think the best technology or the best service should be reserved for those with the biggest headquarters. We’re here to fight for a future where small, local businesses can thrive, and to commit the same dedication they offer all of us. Become a part of our story. We’re looking for exceptional talent to join our mission. We offer a chance to create impact in a high-energy and connected culture, while benefiting from continuous learning opportunities, a supportive community which is proud to serve our mission, and comprehensive benefits. Your Mission You will lead development on an organisational level. Design, implement, and operate customer experiences, complex workflows, and operational task management applications to enable multiple order of magnitude growth. You will work with a diverse team to help shape the future of our technology. You will be part of the whole feature development lifecycle on multiple full-stack applications with direct access to a wealth of customer feedback. You will use technologies such as Java, Kotlin, Golang to write maintainable, performant, and high-quality code. We focus on continuous deployment and iterative delivery, well-tested to ensure our code runs reliably, allowing you to focus on delivering value to merchants in a fluid manner. As a Principal Software Engineer, you will: Take responsibility for the success of the most important projects in the company. Solve highly complex challenges with simple solutions, often where neither the business problem nor technology strategy is well defined. Be a significant hands-on contributor, delivering code contributions that demonstrate best practices and set a high quality bar on a regular basis. Work with a community of Principal Engineers and tech leaders to be a key influencer for strategic tech decisions, Continually evolve our engineering practices using data insights and industry knowledge. Mentor and coach other engineers, fostering their professional growth of the most senior technical people. Lead design reviews for complex software projects and/or critical features, probing assumptions, illuminating pitfalls, and fostering shared understanding. Your Story 8+ years of professional software development experience. Ability to solve problems in code using data structures and algorithms and be able to analyze the time and space complexity of those solutions. Proven ability to document and communicate technical decisions to a diverse audience. Professional experience leading design or architecture (design patterns, reliability, scaling) of multiple new and existing systems. Professional experience growing peer engineers through mentorship and guidance. Ability to work with problems of extreme ambiguity and lead others through ambiguous situations. The Perks We trust you, so we offer flexible working hours, as long it suits both you and your team; Physical and mental health support through our partnership with GymPass giving free access to over 1,500 gyms in the UK, 1-1 therapy, meditation sessions, digital fitness and nutrition apps; Our company offers extended and improved maternity and paternity leave choices, giving employees more flexibility and support; Cycle-to-Work Scheme; Health and Life Insurance; Pension Scheme; 25 days of Annual Leave (+ Bank Holidays); Office snacks every day; Friendly, comfortable and informal office environment in Central London. Teya is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or background can thrive and do their best work. We believe that a diverse team leads to better ideas, stronger outcomes, and a more supportive workplace for all. If you require any reasonable adjustments at any stage of the recruitment process whether for interviews, assessments, or other parts of the application—we encourage you to let us know. We are committed to ensuring that every candidate has a fair and accessible experience with us.