Senior II - Back-End Engineer Location: London

We power people’s progress. At Preply, we’re all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalised learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact. We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started.

As a category-defining company, we’re shaping what the future of learning looks like at global scale. Every Preply lesson sparks change, fuels ambition, and drives progress that matters. Joining Preply means helping define the future of education at global scale, and building something that truly matters for millions of people, every day.

The Preply Engineering Team provides the tools to help unlock human potential through learning. We implement A/B tests to prove the value of our initiatives and improve our product based on data and students' and tutors' feedback. As part of our commitment to ensuring high-quality products, we prioritize monitoring and metrics analysis to identify areas for optimization and ensure our services are performing at their best.

As a Senior II Backend Engineer, you'll drive technical direction across multiple squads, lead high-impact initiatives, and build the systems that power Preply's global growth engine. Your work will influence how we scale our platform, align teams around shared outcomes, and help millions of learners connect with tutors worldwide. Python is our primary language, but prior experience with it isn't mandatory. We take a tech-agnostic approach and welcome engineers from various backgrounds, such as Java, Node.js, Ruby, Scala, .NET, PHP, or Go. What we truly look for is an eagerness to learn the language and the adaptability to hit the ground running with product development.

What you’ll be doing:

• Own, shape, and drive technical direction across multiple engineering squads.
• Lead complex, ambiguous initiatives from idea to delivery, aligning engineers, teams, product managers, and stakeholders around shared outcomes.
• Design, build, and evolve scalable backend systems using Python/Django, data pipelines, and third-party integrations that support long-term business growth.
• Partner with PMs, EMs, and senior stakeholders to shape roadmaps, make technical trade-offs, and guide investment decisions.
• Raise the engineering bar through mentoring, architectural reviews, and engineering best practices.
• Drive reliability, observability, performance, and operational excellence across multiple services and teams.
• Foster a quality-first culture through automation, documentation, and continuous improvement.
• Participate in on-call rotation (1 week every 5 weeks).

What you need to succeed:

• Exposure to architectural patterns of a large, high-scale web application (e.g., well-designed APIs, high-volume data pipelines, efficient algorithms).
• Proven experience leading complex, greenfield projects end-to-end.
• A track record of shaping architectural decisions and setting engineering standards that impact multiple teams or domains.
• Comfort with shaping product scope, challenging requirements, and focusing on customer value.
• Strong communication (English level B2+) with the ability to influence senior peers and leadership through clear reasoning and strong technical judgment.
• Willingness to join your team's on-call rotation (1 week out of every 5).

Why you’ll love it at Preply:

• An open, collaborative, dynamic, and diverse culture.
• A generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com, Learning & Development budget, and time off for your self-development.
• A competitive financial package with equity, leave allowance, and health insurance.
• Access to free mental health support platforms.
• The opportunity to unlock the potential of learners and tutors through language learning and teaching in 175 countries (and counting!).

Our Principles:

• Care to change the world - We are passionate about our work and care deeply about its impact to be life changing.
• Keep perfecting - To create an outstanding customer experience, we focus on simplicity, smoothness, and enjoyment, continually perfecting it as every detail matters.
• Now is the time - In a fast-paced world, it matters how quickly we act.
• Disciplined execution - We set clear goals, focus on what matters, and utilize our resources efficiently.
• Dive deep - We leverage business acumen and curiosity to investigate disparities between numbers and stories, unlocking meaningful insights to guide our decisions.
• Growth mindset - We proactively seek growth opportunities and believe today's best performance becomes tomorrow's starting point.
• Raise the bar - We raise our performance standards continuously, alongside each new hire and promotion.
• Challenge, disagree and commit - We value open and candid communication, even when we don’t fully agree.
• One Preply - We prioritize collaboration, inclusion, and the success of our team over personal ambitions.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Preply.com is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people of diverse backgrounds can thrive. We believe that the presence of different opinions and viewpoints is a key ingredient for our success as a multicultural Ed-Tech company. That means that Preply will consider all applications for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or veteran status.