Backend Staff Engineer

Attest; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 100,000 - 125,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading technology firm in Greater London is seeking a Backend Staff Engineer to spearhead engineering strategy and AI capability development. You will architect scalable systems and lead a team of engineers, promoting a culture of quality and collaboration. The role offers a strong hybrid work model, a competitive salary range of £100K to £125K, and various benefits including 25 days holiday, private medical insurance, and a personal development budget.

Benefits

25 days holiday plus festive days

Private Medical Insurance

£240 yearly L&D budget

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in backend engineering or related fields.
• Experience with building scalable systems and architectures.
• Ability to mentor and guide junior engineers.

Responsibilities

• Lead engineering excellence through designing scalable AI systems.
• Collaborate across teams to implement effective platform features.
• Drive improvements in engineering efficiency and CI pipelines.

Skills

Backend engineering

AI capability development

Collaborative problem-solving

Familiarity with Java, Python, Go

Tools

PostgreSQL

Kubernetes

AWS

Kafka

Job description

The opportunity

We have an exciting opportunity for a Backend Staff Engineer who wants to be at the forefront of the AI revolution to help shape the future of the Engineering strategy - taking the team to the next level. You’ll help to set the direction of backend engineering, be a key person in our AI capability development by navigating everything from decision making to implementation, whilst expertly supporting engineers to balance quality, rapid delivery and value with complexity.

Salary

The salary range for this role is £100K to £125K.

In person and remote working balance

We embrace a flexible hybrid work model. While we don't mandate specific office days, we ask Attesters to work on-site 2 days per week. This approach allows us to collaborate in person, while ensuring enough time remotely for deep, focussed work.

What you’ll be doing…

Our tech stack includes Java (which you will be building in primarily), Python, Go, Kafka, PostgreSQL, Kubernetes, and AWS and whilst we don’t need specific knowledge of these technologies, you should be familiar enough with similar tech to help get up to speed quickly. We use both external and internal AI models.

As a Backend Staff Engineer, you will

Lead Engineering Excellence

• Build upon and shape the future of our ambitious AI capability, architecting systems that scale, experimenting with new technologies, and defining best practices for integrating AI throughout our products and engineering stack.
• Actively lead and contribute to squad discussions, offering your expertise and insights to help solve challenges and work towards solutions.
• Lead by example by writing simple, reliable, and well-tested code that others are proud to build upon to make quality and excellence the default across every part of our platform.
• Lead chapter meetings with positivity and purpose, providing dedicated 1 : 1 time with engineers to listen, understand, and offer constructive feedback.
• Drive the performance of engineers, helping them grow into confident developers while sharing your experience and feedback.

Deliver cross-functional impact

• Alongside the technology leadership team, build and refine Attest’s backend software delivery processes, ensuring they are scalable and efficient.
• Collaborate with domain-specific engineering squads to deliver key platform features, ensuring alignment with the engineering and business strategy.
• Drive improvements in engineering efficiency by identifying patterns, refining tooling, enhancing CI pipelines, and streamlining processes.
• Take ownership of the definition of both public and private APIs, taking a hands‑on approach to problem‑solving.

What’s in it for you…

• You’ll play a defining role in designing and scaling the systems that make our AI-driven research experiences faster, smarter, and more intuitive.
• You will help brands understand and grow their audiences through high-quality insights. Our platform turns complex research challenges into fast, actionable insight. As a Backend Staff Engineer, you’ll architect and evolve the systems that make that possible, shaping how millions of data points become business‑changing knowledge.
• Play a key role in setting the direction of backend engineering as we continue to evolve our product positioning globally.
• Drive Attest’s platform evolution, with a focus on quality improving reliability, scalability, and developer experience.
• You’ll join a team where curiosity, inclusion, and empathy are part of the engineering DNA. Collaboration is genuine—people share knowledge, debate ideas openly, and celebrate each other’s wins.

Amazing benefits…

• Work from anywhere up to 20 days a year
• 25 days holiday per year plus additional festive days
• £240 yearly L&D budget, plus access to a larger budget for qualifications and courses
• Private Medical Insurance
• 1 day per quarter to do charity or community work
• Enhanced parental leave (18 weeks paid leave for Primary carer)
• Up to 12 weeks paid leave for premature births and neonatal care
• Paid leave for IVF and fertility treatment and pregnancy loss
• Share options and an additional bonus scheme