Staff Engineer (Java)
We've been retained exclusively by a Series C fintech that's quietly become one of the most technically ambitious firms in the London market. They're not looking to fill a seat - they need someone who fundamentally raises the ceiling for the engineers around them. This is a rare brief and a rare business.
About the business
Our client is a Series C-funded fintech operating at serious scale in the UK financial infrastructure space. They're well-capitalised, growing fast, and about to embark on European expansion - which is exactly why they need this hire now, not in six months.
The engineering culture here is the real differentiator. These are people who write RFCs before they write code, who debate trade-offs openly and document why. If you've been at a place where \"high standards\" was a slide in an all-hands this is the antidote.
Base salary
* £100k – £140k
* Depending on experience
* Equity
* RSUs included
* Meaningful stake at Series C
Location
* London · Hybrid
* Flexible office / remote split
* Summer hours
* Half-day Fridays
* Seasonal benefit, every year
The role
* Own and evolve the architecture of the core payment and data platform — decisions that touch millions of transactions
* Set the engineering standard across the org: code reviews, design reviews, and practices that outlast any sprint
* Mentor and sponsor senior engineers - grow people as intentionally as you grow systems
* Shape the technical roadmap for European expansion, working closely with product and platform leadership
* Break down ambiguous, cross-cutting problems and deliver well-reasoned, robust solutions at pace
* Champion reliability, observability, and security as first-class concerns — not afterthoughts
Tech stack
* Java 21
* Spring Boot
* Kafka
* PostgreSQL
* Kubernetes
* AWS
* gRPC
* Terraform
* Datadog
* OpenTelemetry
What they're looking for
* Deep Java expertise - you've shipped high-throughput, low-latency services at scale and understand where failure hides
* A genuine staff-level operating model: influencing without authority, leading through clarity, making teams faster
* Strong distributed systems fundamentals — consistency models, failure modes, event-driven design
* A bias for simplicity: you reach for complexity only when the problem demands it, and you document why
* Fintech or regulated-domain experience is advantageous — you understand why correctness isn't negotiable
Why this, why now
* Series C inflection point
* European expansion is imminent - your architecture decisions will compound across a continent
* Genuine staff scope
* Not a rebadged senior role - org-wide technical influence from day one
Culture of craft
* RFCs, open debate, high standards — with the psychological safety to back it
* Summer half-day Fridays
* Because the best engineers are rested engineer
Our process
* Intro call - 30 min with us to align on fit and brief you fully
* Client screen - Conversation with the VP of Engineering
* Technical - System design
* Final & offer - Leadership meet and offer, typically within a week