Principal Backend Engineer

We are looking for a Principal Backend Engineer to help shape the engineering foundations behind Timo’s digital banking platform. In this role, you will own the core engineering platform, building internal frameworks, improving developer experience, and driving engineering best practices across teams. You will help Timo’s engineers ship faster, build more reliably, and scale efficiently.

What You Will Do

• Architect and build internal frameworks, SDKs, and reusable components that streamline development across Timo’s engineering teams

• Drive engineering standards in API design, microservices, observability, and performance optimization

• Improve developer experience (DevEx) through self-service tooling, automation, and CI/CD improvements

• Lead technology evaluation: research, run PoCs, and contribute to Timo’s and Kredivo’s Tech Radar

• Strengthen observability: ensure logging, tracing, and monitoring scale seamlessly with the platform

• Partner with DevOps to optimize CI/CD pipelines and cloud cost efficiency

• Influence cross-functionally across Backend, Mobile, Data, and Security teams to drive organization-wide initiatives

• Mentor senior engineers and drive adoption of platform tools and best practices

• Architect and evolve scalable backend and platform solutions using Java, Spring Boot, microservices, Kubernetes, Kafka/RabbitMQ, and event-driven architectures

• Provide technical leadership on system design, architecture, performance optimization, and complex production troubleshooting

What We Are Looking For

Experience

• 6+ years of backend engineering experience, with prior experience in a Principal, Staff, or technical leadership role

• Proven track record of building production systems at scale

• Background in Platform Engineering, fintech, banking, payments, or Developer Experience is preferred

• Strong hands-on experience with Java, Spring Boot (4+ years), microservices, Kubernetes, Kafka/RabbitMQ, distributed systems, and cloud-native application architectures

Skills & Expertise

• Strong expertise in building internal frameworks, SDKs, or developer tooling

• Deep knowledge of distributed systems, microservices, and software architecture

• Experience evaluating and adopting new technologies, running PoCs, and maintaining a Tech Radar

• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, cloud infrastructure, observability, caching, event-driven systems, and deployment automation

• Skilled at defining and driving engineering standards: API design, performance, reliability

• Familiarity with event-driven and distributed system patterns.

• Excellent debugging and problem-solving skills across complex, multi-service environments

• Professional working English: daily collaboration with Timo leadership and Kredivo’s regional engineering teams