Tech Lead - Decision Technology

Hybrid in London / Remote within the UK

We’re hiring a Tech Lead to lead the evolution of the technology and infrastructure behind our credit decisioning and model training, including feature generation and model evaluation systems. You will build and improve critical systems, shape iwoca’s technical vision, and collaborate with cross-functional teams to deliver innovative, data-driven solutions.

The company: Small businesses move fast. Opportunities often don’t wait, and cash flow pressures can appear overnight. To keep going, and growing, SMEs need finance that’s as flexible and responsive as they are. That’s why we built iwoca. Our smart technology, data science and five-star customer service ensures business owners can act with the speed, confidence and control they need, exactly when it’s needed. We’ve already cleared the way for 100,000 businesses with more than £4 billion in funding. Our passionate team is driven to help even more SMEs succeed, through access to better finance and other services that make running a business easier. Our ultimate mission is to support one million SMEs in their defining moments, creating lasting impact for the communities and economies they drive.

The Team: The LoL-Tech team is responsible for developing and maintaining the technology used to train, deploy and execute iwoca’s credit decisioning models. The LoL-tech team works hand in hand with the team of analysts (the League of Lending AKA LoL) who own and develop credit models and systems to analyse our lending processes. Through this partnership, the team ensures iwoca can continue pushing the boundaries of analytical systems.

The Role: You’ll lead the technical team responsible for the delivery of key technical infrastructure used in model development and live credit-decisioning. This includes but is not limited to fetching external data, developing and maintaining a feature service for the computation of model features, developing and maintaining a platform for general purpose model evaluation and training. You’ll lead a team of developers and work closely with data scientists, building and delivering a shared vision for the future of the team.

• Architectural ownership and impact: Lead the development of software tooling for credit model development and analytics. Collaborate with leaders in analytics, data engineering and architecture to build a shared roadmap to enable the wider needs of the LoL team.
• Hands-on delivery and Leadership and Influence: Act as a hands-on contributor, leading by example in quality, testing, and performance. Drive the technical strategy and execution for the LoL-Tech team, translating vision into well-designed, robust and maintainable systems.
• Team leadership and management: Manage and mentor engineers, taking responsibility for their performance, coaching, and career development. Define and champion engineering best practices within your team and across the wider engineering group.

The requirements:

• Essential: Familiarity with data analytics and Machine Learning processes. An appreciation of the needs of model training including data immutability and temporal consistency. Expertise in systems architecture, including designing and managing complex domain models. Advanced proficiency in software development using an object-oriented language. Confidence in working closely with partners from other disciplines, working to uncover the underlying problems and challenging assumptions. Demonstrable leadership skills: you have mentored juniors and inspired teams to deliver cross-functional projects. You can balance hands-on coding with strategic planning. Experience building and shaping large systems in complex business domains.
• Bonus: A strong numerical or technical background, ideally with a degree in physics, engineering, maths, computer science or a related field. Experience building and maintaining analytics systems. Experience with Python, Snowflake or PostgreSQL. Experience working on feature management systems such as feature-services or features stores. An understanding of complex data systems, including event-sourced data models.

The salary: We expect to pay from £100,000 - £150,000 for this role. But, we’re open-minded, so definitely include your salary goals with your application. We routinely benchmark salaries against market rates, and run quarterly performance and salary reviews.

The culture: At iwoca, we prioritise a culture of learning, growth, and support, and invest in the professional development of our team members. We value diversity in thought and skill, and encourage you to explore new areas of interest to help us improve our products and services.

The offices: We put a lot of effort into making iwoca a brilliant place to work: Offices in London, Leeds, and Frankfurt with plenty of drinks and snacks. Events and clubs, like bingo, comedy nights, yoga classes, football, etc.

The benefits: Flexible working hours. Medical insurance from Vitality, including discounted gym membership, and a private GP service for you, your partner, and your dependents. 25 days’ holiday, an extra day off for your birthday, the option to buy or sell an additional 5 days of annual leave, unlimited unpaid leave, and one-month fully paid sabbatical after 4 years. Instant access to emotional and mental health support with our partner, Spill. Pension and share options. Generous parental leave and a nursery tax benefit scheme to help you save money. Paid volunteering day to support your chosen charity. Cycle-to-work scheme and electric car scheme. Two company retreats a year, we’ve been to France, Italy, Spain and further afield.

And to make sure we all keep learning, we offer: A learning and development budget for everyone. Company-wide talks with internal and external speakers. Access to learning platforms like Treehouse.