COO at Taka - the ultimate youth soccer platform
Taka Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
Location: Newtownabbey Office (Hybrid)
Reporting to: CTO
Salary: £35k to £45k w/ Equity (depending on experience)
At Taka, we’re on a mission to transform the way athletes connect with sports content and access opportunities — from grassroots development in the UK to college soccer in the US. Our platform uses cutting‑edge tech, compelling video, and powerful sports data to make talent more visible and discoverable than ever before.
As a Mid‑Level Product Engineer in Taka, you’ll join a fast‑paced engineering team responsible for building and evolving the applications that power our global sports technology platform. You’ll work across web, mobile, and backend components, taking ownership of features end‑to‑end and shaping the user experiences that players, coaches, and clubs rely on every day.
You’ll be part of a product‑focused engineering team that works with modern, scalable, cloud‑native systems built on proven engineering principles — serverless‑first design, modular architecture, data‑driven decision‑making, and high‑quality engineering principles. You’ll collaborate with Product Engineers to develop new capabilities working as a truly full‑stack engineering, all supported by well‑established patterns and industry‑leading technology choices.
This role is perfect for an engineer who thrives on hands‑on, full‑stack engineering — someone who enjoys building features end‑to‑end, improving existing systems, and contributing directly to the core product experiences our users rely on. You’ll help evolve our cloud‑native applications, turn customer insights into practical solutions, and play an important part in a fast‑moving engineering team focused on delivering meaningful impact.
What you’ll do
* Working as part of an fast‑paced engineering team that uses the Shape Up methodology — planning and delivering work in 7‑week cycles, with an emphasis on delivering real customer value. You’ll also have the opportunity to contribute ideas that help shape what we build next.
* Contributing and leading feature development across the Taka platform — including our React/Next.js web application, React Native mobile app, and Node.js/Python REST and GraphQL backend services.
* Working alongside other Product Engineers to design and build high‑quality user experiences, implementing application logic, API integrations, and client‑side behaviour across web and mobile.
* Designing, developing, and maintaining clean, modular backend APIs (Node.js / GraphQL / Python / Flask) and working with data across the platform, including SQL (Postgres, BigQuery), MongoDB, and data modelling/visualisation features.
* Using tools like PostHog and customer research to shape features informed by real user behaviour, with opportunities to contribute to GenAI, machine learning, and computer vision initiatives.
* Collaborating with the data engineering and data science teams to integrate new data, models, and capabilities into the product, contributing to design discussions and implementation strategies.
* Participating in code reviews, engineering ceremonies, and team‑based problem solving, while learning and applying best practices in modularity, performance, and resilience.
* Supporting testing and quality assurance through robust unit testing, integration testing, and automated UI testing using tools such as Selenium, Playwright, and Appium, and guiding junior engineers on testing strategies.
What you’ll need
* A strong interest in sports is essential. You’ll be working on a sports‑tech product every day, delivering solutions for fans, coaches, players, and scouts. Your enthusiasm and domain knowledge will significantly enhance your ability to understand real‑world challenges and design effective, impactful solutions.
* You’ll bring bold ideas to the table and thrive in collaborative environments. You have strong opinions, loosely held, and are open to evolving your thinking in the face of new information or better solutions.
* 2 to 4 + years of professional software engineering experience, including experience shipping real features in production environments.
* Experience working on web technologies, including APIs (Rest / Graph / Websockets), web services, and databases (SQL or NoSQL), with hands‑on development experience building web and/or mobile applications.
* Curious and proactive, always eager to learn, debug issues, ask thoughtful questions, and continuously improve.
* Strong communicator, capable of clearly explaining your reasoning, mentoring early‑career engineers, collaborating with cross‑functional team members, and receiving feedback constructively.
* A problem solver at heart, comfortable breaking down complex challenges, researching solutions, and applying new tools or technologies to move projects forward.
* Ability to take full ownership of a problem, refine it through structured thinking, and deliver innovative, practical solutions within the constraints of a fast‑paced startup environment.
* A strong sense of accountability — you take pride in your work, care about code quality, and are comfortable owning features from design through deployment, monitoring, and iteration.
* A passion for building user‑centric products, with an eye for detail and a desire to craft interfaces and experiences that genuinely help sports professionals and fans.
What sets you aside
* A naturally proactive approach — you’re the kind of person who jumps in, experiments, and gets things moving, and supports others in doing the same.
* A startup‑ready mentality: flexible, curious, and excited by the challenge of building something new with a small, high‑impact team.
* Programming experience with Python, C# / .net, Vuejs, or engineering experience designing, implementing or maintaining data intensive workloads, event driven architectures, ETL pipelines, streaming systems or other data engineering based projects.
* Experience working closely with product, design, or data teams to shape features from concept to delivery, ensuring strong user outcomes and technical feasibility.
* Google Cloud Platform experience with an emphasis on designing GCP native solutions.
* Designing and building GenAI‑powered solutions using LLM APIs, vector databases, and scalable backend services.
* An academic degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, IT, or another STEM‑related discipline, demonstrating your ability to think analytically and apply structured problem‑solving approaches.
* Full‑stack development experience, hands‑on software engineering experience, or cross‑functional exposure that shows you can collaborate across design, product, and engineering teams to deliver end‑to‑one features.
* Experience or a strong interest working in fast‑paced or startup environments, where priorities shift quickly and ownership, adaptability, and initiative are key to success.
What you’ll get
* The opportunity to build meaningful, high‑impact products in sports and performance analytics—your work will be used in real games, by real teams, and will directly shape how players develop and coaches make decisions.
* Be part of a fast‑growing, mission‑driven team committed to transforming the future of sports technology and making advanced tools accessible at every level of the game.
* Grow alongside a high‑velocity engineering team — developing your technical skills, broadening your experience, and contributing to a platform used globally.
* A friendly, supportive, and collaborative culture where your voice truly counts. You’ll have the space to contribute ideas, take ownership, and grow quickly in both technical and professional areas.
* Enjoy a competitive salary package, alongside clear pathways for career development and personal growth as Taka continues to scale.
* Company equity in an exciting and growing startup.
* 35 days flexible annual leave, with an additional day of AL for every 2 years at Taka.
* Weekly team lunch on a Friday.
Seniority level
Mid‑Senior level
Employment type
Full‑time
Job function
Engineering and Information Technology
Industries
Sports Teams and Clubs
#J-18808-Ljbffr