Masabi
Principal Software Engineer - Payments

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About Us
At Masabi, we’re driving the fare payment revolution, powering the journeys of millions all over the world. We build fare collection platforms that allow riders to seamlessly buy and present tickets for public transport either on their mobile phones, from a ticket machine, or even by tapping their bank card to travel.
The Role
We’re looking for a Principal Engineer - Payments to join Masabi’s Architecture team, with a primary focus on our payments domain.
This is a senior role for someone who combines strong technical judgement with deep payments experience. You’ll help shape the technical direction of our payments platform while staying close enough to the detail to design, review, and support meaningful technical work.
Working across the engineering organisation, you’ll act as a senior technical leader within the payments domain—contributing to architecture, guiding complex decisions, and helping teams build scalable, resilient systems that support millions of journeys worldwide. The role suits someone who can move between system-level thinking and implementation, who understands trade-offs, can navigate ambiguity, and helps turn complex or loosely defined problems into clear, practical technical approaches.
Location
This role is open to candidates based anywhere in the UK, with the flexibility to work fully remotely. For those based in or around London, we also offer the option of hybrid working from our London office.
Responsibilities
- Shape the technical direction of Masabi’s payments platform, contributing to architecture, standards, and engineering best practices
- Design and deliver scalable, secure, resilient, and cost-effective payment solutions aligned with Masabi’s platform direction
- Support teams in building towards a modern, microservices-based architecture while balancing delivery priorities and long-term platform health
- Stay close to technical delivery through architecture reviews, design discussions, and targeted hands-on contribution where needed
- Identify and work through complex technical challenges related to scalability, resilience, operational performance, and system evolution
- Act as a senior technical advisor across engineering teams, supporting and influencing technical decisions, particularly within the payments domain
- Work with external providers and payment partners on integrations, technical alignment, and problem-solving
- Contribute to technical roadmap planning, prioritisation, technical scoping, and architecture discussions for complex initiatives
- Produce clear technical documentation and contribute to engineering standards, technical forums, and good practices across the organisation
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About You
You bring a mix of strong technical expertise, sound judgement, and real-world payments experience.
- Strong experience working on payment systems, including integrations with Payment Service Providers (PSPs), gateways, or acquirers
- Good understanding of payment flows, transaction lifecycles, and system design considerations
- Experience designing and evolving distributed systems and microservices architectures
- You’ve operated at Principal or Staff level, shaping technical direction across multiple teams or domains
- Strong judgement and the ability to balance short-term delivery with long-term architectural outcomes
- Comfortable navigating ambiguity and turning complex problems into clear, practical technical approaches
- Clear and thoughtful communicator, able to engage both technical and non-technical audiences
- Comfortable being hands-on where needed, while maintaining a focus on system-level impact
- Strong experience with cloud platforms, ideally AWS, and modern infrastructure practices
- Experience working on systems where scale, reliability, performance, and cost trade-offs matter
- Experience contributing to engineering standards, architecture patterns, or platform direction
- Interest in or exposure to AI-enabled systems, particularly understanding architectural implications in production


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Nice To Have
- Experience with transit payments, including contactless EMV or tap-to-ride systems
- Familiarity with card schemes such as Visa, Mastercard, or Interac
- Experience working in complex, multi-service or event-driven architectures
- Familiarity with technologies such as Kotlin, Java, DynamoDB, MySQL, Terraform, and GitLab CI/CD
// You don’t need to have experience in every area listed above. If you bring strong fundamentals, good judgement, and a willingness to learn, we’d still love to hear from you.
Why Join Masabi?
- Driven by Purpose – We believe in journeys made simple. The work isn’t always easy, but the best things never are.
- Encouraged to Accelerate – Masabi is going places, and our people are in the driving seat. Whether you’re taking the direct route or exploring new paths, we support your journey.
- Advancing with Empathy – We put people first and foster a culture of learning, not blame. No matter your cargo, we share the load.
- We're already powering journeys—are you ready to join us?
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