(RD) Senior Engineering Team Lead

Backbase; Madrid; On-site; EUR 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

Backbase is seeking a Senior ETL leader in Madrid to steer a squad of 6–9 engineers, focusing on delivering high-quality code and strategic system design. You will spend significant time on architecture and reduction of cycle time, while still actively contributing through reviews and solving technical blockers.

The role emphasizes leadership with strong technical depth, emotional intelligence, and resilience under pressure, with a weekly in-person office presence in Madrid.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience and have shipped production code recently.
• Desire or experience leading people while remaining an active technical contributor.
• Based in Madrid and open to coming into the office once a week.

Responsibilities

• Delivery Mastery: optimize the team’s cycle time and predictability.
• BS Detector: spot unrealistic estimates and risky designs.
• Hands-on Leadership: ~50% system design, ~20% hands-on development.
• Conflict Resolution: mediate cross-team conflicts to protect delivery.
• Talent Density: calibrate team growth, hiring involvement, succession planning for 6–9 engineers.
• Emergency Response: lead or coordinate during critical incidents.
• AI-Native Engineering: drive adoption of AI tooling and workflows to accelerate development.

Skills

People leadership

System design

Code reviews

Job description

The Sr.ETL is the \"Captain\" of a single squad. This is a squad leader role focused on delivery predictability, technical excellence, and day-to-day execution. You are a Senior+ Engineer who manages people, not a manager who used to code; if you cannot open the IDE and debug a production issue, you cannot perform this role.

Meet the Job

• Delivery Mastery: Optimize the team’s \"Idea to Production\" cycle time and strengthen delivery predictability.
• BS Detector: Use your technical depth to spot unrealistic estimates, fragile designs, or risk blind spots.
• Hands-on Leadership: Spend ~50% of your time on system design and ~20% on hands-on development like code reviews and unblocking technical issues.
• Conflict Resolution: Mediate interpersonal or cross-team conflicts early to protect team cohesion and delivery.
• Talent Density: Team growth performance calibration, involved in hiring , and succession planning for your squad of 6–9 engineers.
• Emergency Response: During critical incidents, jump in technically or coordinate the response effectively.
• AI-Native Engineering: Lead the adoption of agentic tooling, LLM workflows, and AI automation within your team to accelerate the development lifecycle.

How About You?

• You have 5+ years of experience and have shipped production code recently. Web, Mobile, Backend (Angular, Kotlin, Swift, Python, …)
• You have an explicit desire or experience leading people but remain an active technical contributor.
• You possess high emotional intelligence and resilience under pressure.
• You are a strong unblocker who translates and synthesizes rather than just relaying messages.
• You are based in Madrid and open to coming into the office once a week.

EMEA Demographic questions

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