TeamFeePay
Principal Software Engineer (Platform)
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Job Description
Location: The Innovation Center, Catalyst, Queens Rd, Belfast BT3 9DT, United Kingdom
Principal Software Engineer
📍 Belfast (Hybrid) | 💰 Competitive salary + benefits
TeamFeePay (TFP) is one of the biggest grassroots football club management platforms in the UK. We support over 2,000 football clubs and 250,000+ coaches, players, parents and guardians on the platform, and we’re now expanding into Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe. We’re a scale-up growing rapidly, and engineering is core to that growth.
About Our Engineering Team
We're organised into three squads: Pitchside Experience, Clubhouse Experience and Platform. This role sits in Platform: the squad that builds the shared services, backend infrastructure and payments capability the rest of TFP is built on, including our move off Heroku.
Our engineers come from a variety of different backgrounds. As long as you enjoy learning new things, we'd love to talk to you: we do not ask for formal qualifications or degree requirements for any of our engineering roles.
Your day-to-day
- Set architectural standards and technical strategy for TFP's backend and payments systems: decisions that need to hold up for years.
- Lead our move off Heroku: make the platform, build-vs-buy and migration calls that shift TFP's technical trajectory, and be personally accountable for their outcomes.
- Be the person called in on our hardest, highest-stakes backend and payments problems.
- Shape product strategy directly for Platform, without a dedicated Head of Product to partner with: own the trade-offs between technical and business priorities yourself.
- Level up the wider engineering org: build consensus among senior engineers on hard technical questions and grow other senior and lead engineers.
You should apply if
- You have experience with Ruby, software architecture, migrations, payments and leading technological change.
- You have strong experience of software development, including a background as a technical leader.
- You've led major technical migrations before, ideally including moving off a PaaS like Heroku.
- You can make the big technical bets, and are comfortable being accountable for them.
- You have experience shaping product strategy directly, without needing a Head of Product to define it for you.
- You have a product mindset: you're comfortable critiquing designs and understanding user journeys to help land on the best solution, not just implementing what's handed to you.
- You want to shape TFP's technical direction as we scale across the UK and into Europe.
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This role does require hands-on Ruby on Rails experience, given its focus on our core backend architecture and payments systems.
What You'll Be Working On
We rely heavily on the following tools and technologies:
- Ruby on Rails to write our API layer (there’s a highly recommended Rails tutorial here).
- Postgres for our database layer.
- Stripe to power payments: membership fees, club shop and fundraising all run through it.
- Currently our infrastructure is on Heroku, but we’ll be moving off this soon: join us and help shape where.
- React Native for our mobile applications.
- We’re moving to React for our web front end, but we’re currently using Rails with Turbo, Hotwire and Stimulus.
Level & career progression
We're hiring at IC5 (Principal Engineer) on our engineering career ladder. Scope: the org / company. You'll set architectural standards and technical strategy, and be the person called in on our hardest, highest-stakes problems. We interview across the whole framework, so if you're not sure exactly what level fits, talk to your recruiter and we'll figure it out together.
How We Work
Our main tech hub is in Belfast. We value meeting in person, but we also offer flexible hybrid working.
About The Role
What's in it for you
- 💰 Competitive salary + benefits.
- 📍 Belfast tech hub, hybrid working, right beside the Titanic Museum.
- 🚗 Free car parking and office snacks.
- ⏰ Flexible working hours.
- 🤖 Access to the latest and greatest AI models to help you get your work done faster.
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Interview process
Our Interview Process Involves:
- 15 min screening call with our talent team.
- 45 min interview with our CTO, Steve.
- 45 min interview with our CPO, James.
- Take-home task or pair coding exercise.
Skills Needed
About The Company
At TeamFeePay, we were founded with a clear mission — to make life easier for grassroots football clubs.
Established in 2018 and headquartered in Belfast, we’ve grown into a leading club management and development platform used by thousands of clubs across the UK, Ireland and Europe.
Our software enables clubs to automate membership payments, player registrations, scheduling, safeguarding and communications, while also supporting fundraising and long-term development.
We go beyond technology by offering club development expertise, helping organisations improve governance, increase revenue and access funding opportunities.
As a fast-growing scale-up backed by investment, we are continuing to expand our reach — creating opportunities for ambitious people to join us on our journey.
Company Culture
Our culture is driven by a shared passion for football, innovation and teamwork.
We are a team of people who live and breathe the game — from coaches and players to developers and customer success specialists.
At TeamFeePay, we value collaboration, creativity and ownership, encouraging everyone to contribute ideas and take pride in their work.
As a growing tech company, we offer a dynamic and fast-paced environment where individuals can make a real impact.
We support continuous learning and encourage our team to develop both professionally and personally, all while working towards a shared goal of improving grassroots football.
Required Criteria
Desired Criteria
Closing Date: Tuesday 4th August, 2026
Contract Type: fulltime
Salary: Based on Experience
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