At a Glance
- Tasks: Own high-impact backend problems and lead technical decisions across teams.
- Company: Join a fast-growing mobile broker revolutionising trading and investing.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, flexible work options, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Dynamic environment with clear career progression and mentorship opportunities.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on a platform serving over 6 million clients.
- Qualifications: Experience with distributed backend systems and strong technical judgement.
The predicted salary is between 59400 - 72600 £ per year.
Our mission is to enable everyone to build wealth. We reinvent how trading and investing work by creating exceptional products people love. That takes high standards, high velocity and engineers who own what they ship. Today, we serve over 6 million clients, with more than €38 billion in assets under management. At that scale, performance, reliability and data integrity are part of the product.
Our platform is powered by a modern, high-performance engineering stack designed for scale and reliability: Java 21 (Spring), Go, Node.js (TypeScript), PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Redis, Kafka, ClickHouse, Elasticsearch, Docker, Grafana, AWS, Kubernetes and Kibana.
About the role:
- Staff Backend Engineers shape technical direction across teams while remaining close to the systems and code.
- You will take on problems whose consequences extend beyond one service or delivery cycle.
- This is not a people-management role. Its leverage comes from technical judgement, credible execution and the ability to help other engineers make better decisions.
What you’ll do:
- Own high-consequence backend problems that span services, teams or product domains.
- Establish clear system boundaries and architectural direction without creating unnecessary central control.
- Lead technical decisions by making constraints, alternatives, risks and trade-offs explicit.
- Improve performance, resilience, data integrity, operability and failure handling across production systems.
- Resolve recurring structural problems rather than treating symptoms team by team.
- Remain hands-on where implementation, diagnosis or prototyping is the fastest way to create clarity.
- Mentor senior engineers, raise review quality and make strong engineering judgement easier to reproduce across teams.
- Partner with engineering and product leaders on sequencing, risk and long-term technical investment.
What you need to have:
- Evidence of technical impact across multiple teams or a substantial product domain.
- Deep ownership of distributed backend systems operating at meaningful scale.
- Strong judgement in service boundaries, asynchronous communication, data ownership, consistency and failure modes.
- Deep knowledge of relational databases, transactions, concurrency and high-performance design.
- A track record of improving reliability, scalability, observability or developer effectiveness through durable mechanisms.
- The ability to influence technical direction through evidence, clarity and trusted execution rather than title.
- Clear communication that helps teams act on complex technical decisions.
- Strong engineering fundamentals and the judgement to choose when to standardise, simplify or leave a system alone.
- Staff scope is assessed through ownership, judgement and sustained organisational impact—not years of experience or familiarity with every technology listed.
What to expect:
- Recruiter conversation
- Code Review
- System Design
- Managerial interview
Your recruiter will explain each stage clearly and follow up after every conversation. Bring your ambition to Europe’s fastest-growing mobile broker!
Staff Backend Engineer in London employer: Trading212
As a Staff Backend Engineer at our company, you will be part of a dynamic and innovative team dedicated to transforming the trading and investing landscape. We pride ourselves on fostering a collaborative work culture that encourages technical excellence and personal growth, offering opportunities to mentor fellow engineers and influence key architectural decisions. Located in a vibrant tech hub, we provide a stimulating environment where your contributions directly impact over 6 million clients, all while enjoying competitive benefits and a commitment to work-life balance.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Staff Backend Engineer in London
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Trading212 or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Trading212.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Trading212.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Trading212 that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Staff Backend Engineer in London
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Trading212.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Trading212 and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Trading212
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Trading212 uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
