Lead Back-end Engineer

About the Engineering Team

At ZOE, we use advanced science and technology to transform health-and our Engineering team sits at the heart of that mission. We are a distributed team of around 40 engineers across the UK and EU who thrive on solving complex challenges together.

We are a highly cross-functional group, bringing together front-end, back-end, mobile, machine learning, and data expertise. We partner closely with Product, Design, and Science to build truly impactful member experiences.

Our Values: We value curiosity, openness, and empowerment. We encourage continuous learning, sharing ideas, and shaping how we work-whether through experimenting with new technology or improving team efficiency.

We're proud of our team's diversity (44% female, 56% male) and believe that varied backgrounds, cultures, and lived experiences make us stronger, more creative, and better equipped to serve our global community.

About The Role & Impact

As a Lead Back-end Engineer, you'll be an Individual Contributor within a dynamic, distributed team of six software engineers. This role is about providing technical leadership and direction to shape the future of our product.

You will collaborate closely with Product Managers, Designers, Data Scientists, and Marketing experts. Your focus will be on designing and building systems in critical areas such as data collection, account management, and permission management. By solving complex problems quickly and delivering impactful solutions, you'll play a key role in advancing our mission.

What You'll Be Doing

• Collaborate with cross-functional partners to design and deliver meaningful solutions for our members.

• Design and run experiments to quickly validate ideas using real user feedback.

• Break down complex, ambiguous problems into simpler parts, enabling the team to deliver incrementally and drive fast impact.

• Balance speed and quality by prioritizing solutions that provide immediate value while ensuring long-term scalability.

• Build maintainable, extensible, and testable solutions that follow engineering best practices.

• Mentor and support teammates, helping them grow their skills while positively shaping team processes and impact.

• Solve backend challenges in close collaboration with product managers and UX designers to deliver a best-in-class customer experience.

• Write high-quality code across our microservices and data pipelines.

• Ship to production frequently, aiming for daily releases or faster.

Our Cutting-Edge Stack (A Taste of What You'll Use)

• Backend: Kotlin / Spring Boot, Python / FastAPI & Django

• Frontend: TypeScript, React Native, Next.js

• Data & Messaging: dbt, BigQuery, Airflow, Google Pub/Sub

• Infrastructure: GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform

• Tools & CI/CD: Grafana, Firebase Auth, ArgoCD, GitHub Actions

We Think You Would Be Great If You

This is what we believe can help someone thrive in this influential role.

• 7+ years of hands on back end development experience, including leading technical decisions, mentoring engineers, and significantly improving system architecture.

• Pragmatic mindset, championing simple and elegant solutions over unnecessary complexity, and knowing when to evolve designs for the future.

• High standards for technical quality and developer experience, enabling the team to move quickly without compromising on excellence.

• Adaptable in fast paced environments, comfortable navigating challenges and driving progress under changing conditions.

• Confident working with ambiguity, building iteratively in short feedback loops to reach the best outcomes.

• Positive and collaborative, bringing energy, joy, and strong relationships to the team while contributing to meaningful work.

We Value Potential: If you're excited about ZOE and this opportunity, please don't hesitate to apply-even if you don't meet every single requirement. We are committed to supporting growth and development along the way.

Our Intentional Hiring Process

We aim for an efficient and insightful process where you can get to know us, and we can get to know you.

• Talent Acquisition Screen - 45 min

• Remote Loop

  • Live Coding Interview - 60 min

  • System Design Interview - 60 min

  • Leadership and Values Interview - 60 min

Ready to thrive? We want to hear from you

The experience, skills, and attributes we've outlined are what we believe will help someone truly thrive in this role.

However, we understand that talent comes in many forms. If you are genuinely excited about ZOE's mission and this opportunity, please don't hesitate to apply-even if you don't meet every single requirement listed.

We fundamentally value potential and commitment above all else. We are dedicated to fostering growth and providing opportunities for you to learn and develop alongside us.