Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - London
Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - London

Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - London

Full-Time 115000 - 130000 ÂŁ / year (est.) No home office possible
Sequence

At a Glance

  • Tasks: Build AI-powered revenue solutions and enhance backend systems for real customers.
  • Company: Join a fast-growing tech startup revolutionising finance with innovative software.
  • Benefits: Competitive salary, equity options, 25 days holiday, and flexible pension plans.
  • Other info: Dynamic work environment with opportunities for rapid career growth.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact in a lean team while shaping the future of finance technology.
  • Qualifications: Experience in backend systems and a passion for customer-focused development.

The predicted salary is between 115000 - 130000 ÂŁ per year.

About Sequence

If you join Sequence, you will help build the platform that lets companies get paid – we’re already processing $1bn+ in annual invoice volume and growing fast. We are building the AI-powered revenue platform for modern finance teams, replacing fragile spreadsheets and legacy systems with software their teams love using. Cognition, incident.io, MoonPay, and 100+ other high-growth companies trust us to handle their entire revenue cycle across quoting, billing, and revenue recognition. Founded by repeat entrepreneurs, we hit 10x ARR growth last year and just closed a $20M Series A led by 645 Ventures, alongside a16z and exceptional founders and CFOs from companies like Decagon, Klaviyo and Wise.

What’s it like to work at Sequence? Small team, big opportunity, real ownership. You will do work that matters, have direct access to customers, and grow alongside the company. If you want to do the best work of your career at a company that’s scaling fast, we’d love to meet you.

What You’ll Be Doing

We care deeply about the quality of the product we’re building. We’re looking for engineers who are ambitious and take ownership end-to-end: from identifying what to build, through shipping, to making sure it works for real customers. Here’s what you might work on:

  • AI-powered approval workflows. Enterprise deals need approval chains, but rigid workflows break when every company has different rules. You will build flexible routing that customers configure in natural language – “require VP approval for deals over $100k with annual terms” – and turn that into deterministic, auditable business logic.
  • An intelligent collections agent. Chasing late payments is tedious, manual work. We’re building an agent you instruct in natural language (“send a reminder at 7 days overdue; elevate at 14 days”), which then runs the entire workflow autonomously.
  • Scaling billing infrastructure 10x. We’re building revenue-critical infrastructure and currently rearchitecting our billing pipeline for an order of magnitude more throughput – rethinking storage strategies, horizontal scalability, and how we’ll handle 10x load without 10x cost.

We’re a lean team growing to 20+ engineers. You will have real influence on what we build and how we build it. Early enough to shape fundamental architecture. Late enough that customers depend on what you ship. You will design systems that process high-velocity event streams, make technical decisions that balance cost and performance at scale, and build infrastructure that never compromises on reliability. This is business-critical infrastructure: a dropped event means someone isn’t charged correctly. An outage at month-end means finance teams can’t collect revenue from their customers.

What Our Newest Hires Have Shipped

  • Watchtower: our command center for AI agents. As we introduce agents that automate financial workflows, customers need visibility and control. This included building our first agent – a contract intake system that extracts customer and pricing information from uploaded or emailed contracts, taking customers from signed contract to automated billing in minutes.
  • A fully integrated e-signature experience for quotes. When a customer is closing a deal, friction kills momentum. We rebuilt the signing experience – including embedded authentication and branded emails – into a seamless signing experience used by teams at the top tech companies every day.
  • Role-based access controls across the product. Different companies have different structures, but they all need tight control over who can approve deals or access sensitive data. This meant designing a flexible RBAC model that handles resources across every API endpoint and UI surface.

You should apply if:

  • You’ve shipped production backend systems and care about the difference between “it works” and “it’s reliable.”
  • You care about customers – you want to understand why you’re building something, not just what.
  • You’re comfortable with ambiguity. You thrive in early ideation stages, share work-in-progress to gather feedback, and adapt easily based on input.
  • You communicate clearly. Thoughtful communication is a superpower that sharpens how we collaborate and build.
  • You’re interested in distributed systems and writing resilient software.

Nice to have:

  • Deep relational database expertise. We do a lot of complex queries and care about performance.

This might not be right if:

  • You enjoy larger organisation structures and staying only within your area of expertise.
  • Taking ownership here means doing whatever the problem needs.
  • You want a traditional engineering team set up, with a predictable roadmap and clearly scoped out tickets provided for you.
  • You prefer a slower pace. Customers are depending on what we ship.
  • You aren’t comfortable with production responsibility. We’re revenue-critical infrastructure – on-call matters here.

Tech stack

We hire for ability, not a specific tech stack. Most of the team learned our stack here:

  • Backend: Kotlin (modular monolith using Http4k, Spring Boot, Exposed, Result4k)
  • Storage: Postgres, BigQuery
  • Async messaging: Google Cloud Pub/Sub
  • Infrastructure: Google Cloud, Terraform
  • Frontend: TypeScript, React
  • Monitoring: Google Cloud Monitoring, Sentry
  • Tools: GitHub, Slack, Notion, Linear

How We Work

We’re based in London and New York and love spending as much time with our colleagues as possible. We spend three days together in the office, with team lunch on Wednesdays. You will join a cross-functional product team working directly with design and product. We get together twice a year for company offsites.

What we offer:

  • Salary: ÂŁ115,000 - ÂŁ130,000
  • Equity: Meaningful share options
  • 25 days holiday + bank holidays
  • Modern, flexible pension via Penfold with salary sacrifice available
  • Visa sponsorship available

Interview process

We move fast – typically 1-2 weeks start to finish:

  • Initial interview (30 mins)
  • Technical interview (60 mins)
  • Product interview (30 mins)
  • System design interview (45 mins)
  • Founder interview (30 mins)

We’ve written a detailed blog post about the process with tips about how to prepare.

Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - London employer: Sequence

At Sequence, we pride ourselves on fostering a dynamic work environment where innovation thrives and every team member has the opportunity to make a significant impact. With a strong focus on employee growth, we offer meaningful equity options, generous holiday allowances, and a collaborative culture that encourages direct access to customers and cross-functional teamwork. Located in the vibrant city of London, our small yet ambitious team is dedicated to building cutting-edge solutions for modern finance, making this an exciting place for passionate engineers to grow their careers.
Sequence

Contact Detail:

Sequence Recruiting Team

StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫

We think this is how you could land Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - London

✨Tip Number 1

Network like a pro! Reach out to folks in your industry on LinkedIn or at meetups. A friendly chat can lead to opportunities that aren’t even advertised yet.

✨Tip Number 2

Show off your skills! Create a portfolio or GitHub repo showcasing your projects. When you apply through our website, include links to your work so we can see what you’re capable of.

✨Tip Number 3

Prepare for the interview like it’s the Super Bowl! Research our company, understand our products, and think about how your experience aligns with what we do. We love candidates who are genuinely interested.

✨Tip Number 4

Follow up after your interview! A quick thank-you email can go a long way. It shows you’re keen and keeps you fresh in our minds as we make decisions.

We think you need these skills to ace Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - London

Backend Development
Kotlin
Spring Boot
Postgres
BigQuery
Google Cloud
Terraform
Distributed Systems
Resilient Software Design
Analytical Skills
Problem-Solving Skills
Communication Skills
Adaptability
Customer-Centric Mindset

Some tips for your application 🫡

Show Your Passion: When you're writing your application, let your enthusiasm for the role shine through! We want to see that you’re genuinely excited about building innovative products and making a real impact.

Tailor Your Application: Make sure to customise your CV and cover letter to highlight your relevant experience. We love seeing how your skills align with what we’re doing at Sequence, so don’t hold back on showcasing your achievements!

Be Clear and Concise: We appreciate clear communication, so keep your application straightforward. Avoid jargon and get straight to the point about your experience and what you can bring to our team.

Apply Through Our Website: Don’t forget to submit your application through our website! It’s the best way for us to receive your details and ensures you’re considered for the role. We can’t wait to hear from you!

How to prepare for a job interview at Sequence

✨Understand the Product

Before your interview, take some time to really understand Sequence's platform and its impact on finance teams. Familiarise yourself with the AI-powered features mentioned in the job description, like approval workflows and intelligent collections agents. This will help you articulate how your experience aligns with their needs.

✨Showcase Your Ownership Mindset

Sequence is looking for engineers who take ownership from start to finish. Prepare examples from your past work where you identified a problem, built a solution, and ensured it was reliable for users. Highlighting your ability to manage ambiguity and adapt based on feedback will resonate well with them.

✨Communicate Clearly

Effective communication is key at Sequence. Practice explaining complex technical concepts in simple terms, as you may need to discuss your ideas with non-technical team members. Think about how you can demonstrate your communication skills during the interview, perhaps by sharing a project where collaboration was crucial.

✨Prepare for Technical Challenges

Given the technical nature of the role, brush up on your backend systems knowledge, especially in Kotlin and relational databases. Be ready to tackle system design questions and demonstrate your understanding of building resilient software. Practising coding problems related to their tech stack can give you an edge.

Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - London
Sequence

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