Back End Engineer

Role: Backend Engineer

Department: Technology

Reporting To: Engineering Manager

Contract Location: UK

Working Style: Fully flexible remote working model

Hours of Work: Mon - Fri, 9:00 - 17:30

Travel Requirements: None

About Jaja

Our Mission: Empowering our customers to buy, borrow, and build-driven by technology, fuelled by data, and built for the future.

Our Company Values: Care Deeply, Adapt & Thrive, Challenge Everything, Go for It! Own It, Make It Simple.

Jaja is an innovative UK-based consumer finance business, initially launching a digital credit card in 2018, with a pipeline of consumer finance solutions in development. With backing from major private equity funds, Jaja has grown rapidly, recently acquiring a £530m credit card portfolio from the Bank of Ireland and launching a significant partnership with Asda in the UK.

We are on a mission to redefine the consumer finance experience and liberate customers from unnecessary complexity, wasted time, and frustration. Or as we say it, Make It Simple . We aim to delight our customers by making their experience simpler, more enjoyable, and more intelligent-treating them fairly and giving them greater control over their finances.

Why Join Us?

This is an opportunity to make a significant impact in a growing business on a mission to transform the consumer finance industry forever. Join our Technology team, working in agile squads with passionate colleagues, to deliver top-tier technical solutions for our backend services in a fast-paced environment.

About The Role

As a Backend Engineer, you will deliver a substantial backlog of varied and exciting changes to our consumer finance platform. You will work in agile squads to provide high-quality technical solutions, contributing to a business revolutionising the consumer finance industry.

Key Responsibilities

• Work with product owners to refine, estimate and prioritise Jira tickets
• Attend and contribute to agile ceremonies and platform discussions
• Deliver code that is easy to understand, maintain and test
• Collaborate closely with engineers from other platforms
• Develop and maintain scalable, high-performance RESTful APIs using Java and related technologies (Spring, JPA, Kafka, JUnit).
• Apply design patterns, SOLID principles, and clean code practices.
• Work with relational databases and SQL to ensure efficient data management.
• Design, deploy, own and maintain microservices in a cloud environment (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure).
• Debug complex issues and implement effective solutions.
• Ensure security best practices, including data protection and access control.
• Collaborate with agile teams using practices such as pair programming and code reviews.
• Use project management, source control, and CI tools (e.g., Jira, Git, Jenkins).

About You

We're seeking passionate individuals who align with our values-caring deeply about customer experience, adapting to challenges, and owning their work to deliver simple, high-quality solutions. The successful candidate must reside in Europe and have the legal right to work in the jurisdiction they live in and meet the following criteria:

Required Skills & Experience

• Enthusiasm to learn and deliver high-quality software.
• Experience in agile teams with practices like pair programming and code reviews.
• Several years of hands-on development experience with Java and related technologies (Spring, JPA, Kafka, JUnit).
• Understanding of design patterns, SOLID, and clean code principles.
• Experience building scalable and high-performance RESTful APIs.
• Knowledge of relational databases and SQL.
• Understanding of microservices architecture and experience deploying/maintaining microservices.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure).
• Strong problem-solving skills for debugging complex issues.
• Good understanding of security best practices (data protection, access control).
• Strong communication and collaboration skills.
• Experience with tools such as Jira, Git, and Jenkins.

Desired Skills & Experience

• Interest in or experience with DevOps tools (Docker, Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines).
• Experience with application logging and monitoring tools.
• Understanding of test automation, continuous testing, and test coverage metrics.
• Knowledge of architectural solutions (highly available systems, distributed applications, disaster recovery, automation).

What's in It for You?

• Competitive salary based on industry benchmarking.
• Fully flexible remote hybrid working model.
• Pension Salary Exchange scheme to enhance pension contributions.
• Participation in our annual bonus scheme.
• 25 days annual leave (FTE) plus UK bank holidays (increasing by 1 day per full calendar year worked, up to 30 days).
• An additional day off for your birthday each year.
• Private medical cover through Vitality. (UK only)
• 4x life assurance cover.
• Family-friendly policies with enhanced support.
• Free access to our confidential Employee Assistance Programme.
• Access to company perks, competitions, and recognition schemes.

Jaja Finance Confidential