Tech Lead - Payments and Billing

We're hiring a Tech Lead for our brand new Payments squad, part of Saldo, our Billing and Payments Service. Payments at tem works today, but it's a basic service. We're growing fast, and it needs to be built for the scale we're moving towards. You'll be the first tech lead in a squad that already has a senior engineer and three junior engineers, and you'll own the outcome of the squad's delivery and the standards it works to. This is a hands-on role. You'll write design docs, review code, solve the hardest problems alongside the team, and set the technical direction for payments. The number you'll move is the cost of processing every pound that flows through tem. Your job is to bring it down, and keep it low as we scale. You'll report into the Service Manager for Saldo.

Responsibilities

Own the outcome: Take responsibility for the squad's delivery and the standards it works to, so the team ships work we're proud of; Lead from the front line: Write specs and design docs, give feedback on ADRs, review pull requests, and solve problems directly through code or workflows; Set the payments architecture direction: Turn a genuinely ambiguous area into a clear technical strategy, without waiting for someone else to define the problem; Cut the cost to process: Own payment accuracy and processing efficiency as the direct levers on cost-to-process; Design how the squad works: Define the squad's operating model and set the pace, rather than waiting for a playbook; Own the big picture: Manage sequencing and dependencies, diagnose why throughput isn't improving, and make sure the squad's work is visible to stakeholders; Build a high-performance team: Coach junior engineers while working the hardest problems alongside our senior engineer, and define what good looks like by working the details with the team; Partner on people decisions: Flag promotion and hiring gaps to your manager, who keeps line management and performance conversations, with decisions on people made jointly

Requirements

A track record as a tech lead, owning the outcome of a squad's delivery and the standards it works to; A track record of leading from the front line: writing design docs, reviewing PRs and ADRs, and solving problems hands-on while setting direction; The ability to balance hands-on work on the biggest technical challenges with coaching more junior engineers, holding the whole team to a consistent quality and speed bar; Experience designing a team's ways of working from scratch, balancing speed, quality and resilience; Experience owning cross-team sequencing and dependencies, and diagnosing throughput problems rather than just reporting them; Comfort cutting through real ambiguity to set technical direction, and driving technical blockers to resolution rather than just visibility; For this position, ideally comes from the payments industry; It's preferred that someone has deep experience with Python (FastAPI) and modern JavaScript/TypeScript frameworks such as React, however open to people who demonstrate the ability to be tech agnostic

Nice to have

Experience improving cost-to-process or processing efficiency in a high-volume service; Experience taking a service from a basic first version to something built for scale

Benefits

Competitive salary; Stock options so everyone has ownership in our mission; 25 days holiday plus public holidays, with the option to swap public holidays for ones that matter most to you, and your birthday off; Remote first and flexible working, with clear core hours and no internal meetings on Friday afternoons; Up to GBP1,200 or EUR1,200 per year for your remote setup; Up to GBP150 or EUR150 per month for wellbeing