Technical Lead/Staff Engineer

Darwin Recruitment; Berlin; On-site; COP 391,766,000 - 498,611,000; Full time

Job summary

Darwin Recruitment is seeking a Staff Engineer to set technical direction across multiple teams in a fast-growing EdTech environment. You will shape multi-year architecture, mentor engineers, and drive high-impact initiatives with cross-functional partners in Product and Design.

You will own the design of scalable systems, influence roadmaps, and make critical build-vs-buy decisions while maintaining system health and quality across domains.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering leadership experience.
• Experience setting technical strategy and architecture.
• Strong communication with engineers and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Define multi-year, multi-team technical strategy and scalable architecture.
• Own cross-team design issues and ensure system quality.
• Lead high-impact initiatives requiring deep technical judgment.
• Make build-vs-buy decisions for company-wide systems.
• Mentor engineers and engineering managers; role model the craft.
• Influence roadmaps beyond your team; align with Product and Design.
• Oversee health, testing, maintainability; conduct health reviews.
• Represent engineering in hiring for senior staff; communicate vision.

Skills

Leadership

System design

Cross-team collaboration

Mentoring

Technical communication

Architecture direction

Stakeholder alignment

Decision making in ambiguity

Node.js/TypeScript/React experience

Tools

Claude Code

Copilot

Cursor

Job description

Staff Engineer

We're one of Europe's fastest-growing EdTech companies, on a mission to make learning as fun and addictive as your favorite series. From bite-sized training to full learning journeys, everything we create is designed to inspire people to grow-both personally and professionally.

Behind the scenes? A team of curious minds, creative thinkers, and tech enthusiasts who love solving real problems and building products that truly make an impact. We move fast, think big, and don't take ourselves too seriously along the way.

About the role

As a Staff Engineer, you'll set technical direction across multiple teams and systems-defining architecture, shaping multi-year strategy, and making sure our engineering foundations can scale with the business. You'll spend less time in any single codebase and more time shaping how the pieces fit together.

You'll be a force multiplier: mentoring senior engineers, raising the bar on system design, and stepping in on the hardest, most ambiguous problems that cross team boundaries.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive multi-year, multi-team technical strategy, making sure our architecture and systems can scale with the business.
• Own the design and quality of systems that span multiple teams, resolving cross-team and cross-module design issues before they become problems.
• Lead high-impact initiatives that require deep technical judgment, prioritization, and coordination across teams.
• Make key build-vs-buy and technology/framework decisions for systems with company-wide impact.
• Mentor senior engineers and engineering managers, raising the technical bar through code and design reviews, and acting as a role model for the craft.
• Influence roadmaps beyond your own team, aligning technical direction with company priorities and the needs of Product and Design.
• Drive the overall health, testing strategy, and maintainability of the systems you own, including regular health reviews.
• Represent engineering in the hiring process for senior and staff-level candidates, and help communicate our technical vision internally and externally.

Requirements

• 8+ years of experience as a software engineer, with a track record of leading complex, cross-team technical initiatives.
• Demonstrated experience setting technical strategy and architecture for systems used by multiple teams.
• Deep expertise across the stack-Node.js, TypeScript, and React-plus enough fluency in .NET and Vue to guide our transition and support existing systems.
• Strong system design skills: service boundaries, data modeling, scalability, and failure-mode thinking for systems at scale.
• Experience mentoring senior engineers and setting the bar for quality through code and design reviews.
• A track record of influencing technical direction and roadmaps beyond your own team, and building buy-in across stakeholders.
• Comfortable making decisive calls in ambiguous, high-stakes situations, and knowing when to disagree and commit.
• Experience using LLM tools (such as Claude Code, Copilot, or Cursor) in your daily workflow-not just for coding, but also for research, documentation, and ideation.
• Excellent communication skills-you tailor your message to your audience and can write clearly for both engineers and non-technical stakeholders.