Head of Engineering

The client has built an incredible On-Demand Pay platform that enables workers to draw down their pay as they earn it throughout the month. This puts the worker in control of when they are paid and helps them avoid debt. 

The ideal candidate should be a senior/lead engineer who is ready to take their next step and move into a more strategic role, with a clear pathway to CTO as the company grows. They have a functional engineering team, so you would not need to code the product but would need to understand the code base and support the engineering team. You’ll be responsible for providing rapid response, leading and strategising for the technical road map, recruitment and product. The tech stack is JavaScript, Node.JS and React.JS. 

Their holistic solution to ‘life between pay days’ also includes Payroll Savings, which allows workers to save directly from their salary into a high-interest bank account, and budgeting tools powered by Open Banking technology. 

Key benefits for Head of Engineering

• Competitive salary depending on experience 
• Lots of room for career development (with a clear pathway to CTO) 
• EMI options (equity) 
• The opportunity to work for a company with purpose at the leading edge of fintech. 
• The freedom to execute your ideas with a passionate and motivated team supporting you 

About the role

The engineering team is currently outsourced to an external development company but they plan to bring engineering expertise onto the permanent team this year, starting with you. 

As Head of Engineering, you will be responsible (and accountable) for the codebase, all technical decisions and all engineers at Level, including the recruitment of new staff.  

You will play a central role in the future development of Level’s software, especially as regards transitioning to an API-first company. 

As you would expect at a startup, this is a broad role encompassing hands-on development, line management, technical strategy, customer success, sales support, delivery and more. If you are keen to be involved in all aspects of a technology company, not just engineering, this is the right role for you. 

Responsibilities

How you will make an impact: 

• Define, communicate, and drive Level’s technical vision, ensuring alignment with product and business strategy 
• Lead, shape and define the engineering strategy and standards of the company 
• Be accountable for the performance of the platform  
• Define the technical capabilities required to achieve the product strategy 
• Ensure the teams are focussing on the right short term and long-term activities and balancing work across build, run and learning/development 
• Ensure what we build is highly secure, available, resilient, and web-scale 
• Communicate architectural decisions, plans, goals, and strategies to both technical and business stakeholders 
• Speak, write and communicate about Level’s technical capabilities externally where necessary 
• Work with the CPTO to determine the right balance of onshore and offshore resources over time 
• Drive the hiring of great technical talent 

Requirements

• Experience as a senior engineer in a fast-paced fintech environment 
• Passion for writing great code and deploying successful patterns and systems that can be used for a broad set of business use cases 
• Expert level knowledge of Node JS, React.JS, MongoDB and AWS infrastructure 
• Experience of API design and development 
• Expert understanding of the secure software development lifecycle 
• Strong advocacy for automated testing, continuous delivery, and software quality across the software development life-cycle 
• Experience managing local and offshore teams 
• Excellent stakeholder management. 
• Ability to operate at a range of levels – including big picture strategic thinking, thought leadership and data analysis 
• The ability to design simple and straightforward solutions to complex problems 
• BS/MS in Computer Science or related area or equivalent experience + advance degree preferred 

Nice to have: 

• Experience delivering greenfield payments systems and other money movement rails 
• Experience building software in regulated environments (eg FCA, ISO27001) 
• A strong focus on shipping to deadlines. This means getting things done, not on building the perfect system 
• Experience architecting, developing, and bringing a software platform from idea to market, preferably for a startup 
• Experience with service-based architectures, Domain-Driven Design, and reactive/event-driven systems 

This could be a great opportunity as a Head of Engineering to come on board and bring previous level experience to an exciting scale-up!