Senior Staff Engineer - Payments

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Senior Staff Engineer – Payments based in Germany. As Senior Staff Engineer, you will be the first technical lead within a newly established Payments squad, shaping the architecture and engineering standards for a rapidly scaling platform. You will take ownership of the squad's technical direction, delivery outcomes, and approach to balancing speed, quality, resilience, and scalability. This is a highly hands-on leadership role where you will remain close to the code while tackling the most complex technical challenges alongside the engineering team. You will help transform an existing payments service into robust infrastructure capable of supporting significant growth and transaction volumes. A key focus will be improving payment accuracy and processing efficiency while reducing the cost of every transaction handled by the platform. You will also coach engineers, establish effective ways of working, and create an environment where high technical standards and fast execution go hand in hand. The role offers the opportunity to shape foundational payment infrastructure within a fast-moving, mission-driven technology environment.

Take ownership of the Payments squad's delivery outcomes and establish the engineering standards required to consistently deliver reliable, high-quality work. Lead from the front by writing technical specifications and design documents, reviewing architecture decision records and pull requests, and solving complex problems directly through code and workflows. Define the technical and architectural strategy for the payments domain, turning ambiguous challenges into a clear, actionable direction without waiting for predefined solutions. Drive improvements in payment accuracy, processing efficiency, and operational performance, with a direct focus on reducing the cost of processing transactions as the platform scales. Design and establish the squad's operating model, setting an effective balance between delivery speed, engineering quality, resilience, and sustainable development practices. Own technical sequencing and cross-team dependencies, identify bottlenecks affecting throughput, and actively drive blockers through to resolution. Maintain visibility of the squad's priorities, progress, dependencies, and technical challenges with relevant stakeholders. Build a high-performing engineering team by coaching junior engineers, collaborating closely with senior engineers, and establishing a consistently high bar for technical quality and execution. Partner with management on hiring and promotion needs, identifying capability gaps and contributing to people-related decisions while supporting the team's long-term growth. Report to the Service Manager responsible for the billing and payments domain. Requirements Proven experience as a technical lead with ownership of a squad's delivery outcomes, engineering standards, and overall technical direction. Strong hands-on engineering background, with experience writing design documents, reviewing pull requests and architecture decisions, and contributing directly to solving complex technical problems. Demonstrated ability to combine hands-on technical leadership with coaching and developing less-experienced engineers. Experience establishing or significantly shaping a team's ways of working, including making thoughtful trade-offs between delivery speed, quality, reliability, and resilience. Experience managing cross-team technical sequencing and dependencies and diagnosing the underlying causes of delivery or throughput challenges. Strong ability to operate in ambiguous environments, define problems from first principles, establish technical direction, and drive difficult technical blockers to resolution. Excellent systems-thinking and architectural skills, with the ability to design services that can evolve from an initial implementation into scalable, resilient infrastructure. Experience working in a fast-paced environment where autonomy, ownership, and pragmatic decision-making are highly valued. Experience with payment systems is desirable but not essential. Experience improving processing efficiency or cost-to-process in a high-volume service is an advantage. Experience scaling an early-stage or foundational service into production infrastructure capable of supporting significant growth is desirable. Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to work effectively across engineering, product, and leadership stakeholders. Benefits Competitive salary. Stock options, providing an opportunity to share in the ownership and long-term success of the business. 25 days of annual holiday in addition to public holidays. Flexibility to swap public holidays for alternative days that are more meaningful to you. Birthday day off. Remote-first and flexible working environment. Clear core working hours with no internal meetings scheduled on Friday afternoons. Remote-work setup allowance of up to GBP 1,200 or EUR 1,200 per year. Wellbeing allowance of up to GBP 150 or EUR 150 per month. Opportunity to help shape foundational payments infrastructure within a rapidly growing technology company. Inclusive environment that welcomes people from diverse backgrounds, experiences, and identities.

laptop-ats-crawler v3