Backend Engineer - Phone Scam Disruption

Netcraft; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 120,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

33 days annual leave

Enhanced family leave and pay

Private health cover

Equity tracking scheme

Hybrid and flexible working options

Meals, snacks and drinks in office

Learning & Development days

Job summary

Netcraft is hiring a Backend Engineer to join the Specialised Disruption team. Based in London, Manchester, or Bath, you’ll help build and maintain the phone scam disruption product, primarily in Go with legacy Perl systems and a TypeScript UI.

You’ll work across maintenance and new features, owning production services and improving reliability, performance, and security. The role offers hybrid working options and opportunities to tackle complex, real-time challenges.

Qualifications

• Experience developing production backend systems, preferably Go or similar.
• Experience in domains related to phone scams, telecoms, or anti-abuse is a plus.
• Ability to work independently and own services and systems.
• Strong attention to detail in production environments.
• Proactive in addressing operational issues or incidents.
• Experience with SQL databases, schema design, and complex queries.
• Familiar with Git and CI/CD pipelines.
• Good written and verbal communication skills and openness to AI tooling.

Responsibilities

• Design and build features and improvements for our products, balancing performance, reliability and security.
• Maintain and modernise existing services, including legacy Perl, ensuring stability and operability.
• Test and document work to a high standard with strong attention to detail.
• Take responsibility for system maintenance, operational stability and incident prevention.
• Respond to issues with urgency and ownership, identify root causes and implement long-term fixes.
• Identify scaling bottlenecks and resolve them while managing running costs.
• Collaborate with other engineering teams to ensure service integration.
• Work with cross-functional stakeholders to design and implement solutions.

Skills

Go

Backend

SQL

Independent ownership

Tools

Git

Docker

Kubernetes

Perl

Job description

About Netcraft

Netcraft is the global leader in cybercrime detection and disruption. We’re a trusted partner for three of the four largest companies in the world and many large governments. We've blocked over 225 million cyber-attacks to date, and we take down around 33% of the world's phishing attacks.

Our purpose and passion are focused on just one thing: protecting the world from cybercrime.

That passion shapes how we work, too. We’re proud of our talented team and the value each person brings, and we’ve built a workplace where people feel supported and inspired. From strong benefits and wellness programs to meaningful collaboration and team connection.

About the team

We’re searching for a Backend Engineer to join our growing engineering team. Based in either London, Manchester, or Bath, you’ll report to one of our Engineering Managers and work primarily on the backend of our broad range of cybercrime detection and disruption services. The service you’ll spend most of your time on is our phone scam disruption product.

Criminals impersonate trusted brands like banks, retailers and delivery firms over calls and texts to defraud their customers. Our product finds the phone numbers behind these scams and gets them disabled at source. We report them to the mobile carriers and toll‑free providers we work with directly, and the median number is taken down within about half an hour.

The department you'll be joining is Specialised Disruption, where you'll often work on the newer and more novel parts of our platform, but you'll also pick up work across the department’s other products, especially as new ones emerge and existing ones evolve. The department is fast‑moving and involves working on products that might not have found perfect product‑market fit yet.

About the role

This role is a mix of maintenance and feature work. You’ll design and build new features and services as the product grows, and take ownership of the systems already in production, caring as much about their reliability, performance, and stability as about what you ship next.

The phone scam product is primarily Go, alongside some legacy Perl systems that you’ll help maintain and gradually modernise, and an internal TypeScript UI. It would suit an engineer who’s happy working across that whole span, with the main focus on the backend.

You’ll sometimes help the commercial team work out where a product fits, weighing up which customers it suits and what’s realistic to build. That can mean jumping into a proof of concept yourself, making sure the product works well and improving it where it falls short.

Day to day, you’ll be

• Designing and building features and improvements to our products, while taking non‑functional requirements like performance, reliability, and security into account.
• Maintaining and modernising existing services, including some legacy Perl, ensuring stability, maintainability, and operational reliability.
• Testing and documenting your work to a high standard with strong attention to detail.
• Taking responsibility for system maintenance, operational stability, and incident prevention.
• Responding to issues with a sense of urgency and ownership, identifying root causes and implementing long‑term fixes.
• Identifying scaling bottlenecks and resolving them, while being conscious of running costs.
• Collaborating with other engineering teams to ensure services you own are well‑integrated with their services.
• Working with cross‑functional stakeholders to help propose, design and implement solutions to meet business needs.
• Working independently and proactively, identifying opportunities to improve systems and processes over time.

What you’ll need to be successful

• Experience developing and maintaining production backend systems, ideally in Go or a similar backend language.
• Experience in a domain relevant to phone scams, such as telecoms, phone or messaging systems, or fraud and anti‑abuse. You don’t need to have worked at a telco, but you should bring relevant experience from an adjacent area.
• The ability to work independently and take ownership of services and systems.
• Strong attention to detail, particularly when working with production systems.
• A proactive mindset when addressing operational issues or incidents.
• Experience working with SQL databases (such as MySQL or MariaDB), including schema design, and writing and optimising complex queries.
• Experience with version control systems, such as Git, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Good written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey technical concepts clearly and concisely.
• Open to using AI tooling in software development.

Bonus points if you have

• Experience with TypeScript.
• Experience with Perl.
• Exposure to Docker, Kubernetes, or other containerisation technologies.
• Experience working on large or long‑lived production systems.
• A keen interest in cybercrime or cyber security.
• Experience with ML/LLM classification or automation.
• Familiarity with telecoms, VoIP, or messaging technologies (e.g. SIP, SMPP, number routing).
• Comfortable using configuration management tools, such as Puppet.

The Rewards Package

• 33 days annual leave - includes public holidays which can be worked if you prefer
• Generous enhanced family leave and pay
• Enhanced Sick Pay from day 1, rising to 12 weeks full pay after 6 months
• Salary sacrifice pension with matched employer contributions up to 5% + NI savings
• Private health cover, including access to a private GP service
• Life Assurance at 4 x salary
• Equity tracking scheme (eligibility criteria apply) - allowing you share in Netcraft's long term success
• Hybrid and flexible working options
• Meals, snacks, and drinks provided in the office
• Comprehensive health, safety, and wellness service available 24/7 for you and your family
• Two paid Learning & Development days per year plus access to learning resources such as Udemy and Coursera to support your career
• Two Volunteering Days per year, to allow you to contribute to your wider community or charity
• Employee Referral Bonus scheme
• Spot reward bonus scheme to reward truly outstanding contributions

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

This is deeply important to us. Through our ally network, we support under‑represented groups and maintain a working environment free from bias, harassment, or discrimination. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

We’re also happy to make adjustments to the hiring process to ensure every candidate can participate fully.

Please note

Netcraft does not accept unsolicited approaches from external recruiters.