Lead Backend Engineer

Zego; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Share options

Private medical insurance

Pension

Annual bonus

Commute/learning budget

Job summary

Zego is hiring a senior backend engineering lead in London. You will lead several engineers, own Python microservices powering our insurance platform, and shape scalable back-end architectures that serve millions of drivers.

You will mentor engineers, drive architecture and incident response, and push for fast, reliable delivery with a strong focus on AI-enabled workflows. This is a hybrid role with office in central London or Halifax.

Qualifications

• Deep backend expertise with cloud-native microservices, Python preferred, or strong experience in another language.
• Distributed architectures and observability, with performance tuning and system design fundamentals.
• Focus on simplicity, maintainability, and clear trade-offs.
• Leadership through mentoring, clear communication, and collaborative problem solving.
• Proactive cross-functional collaboration and explaining decisions to non-technical stakeholders.
• Daily work with AI-first mindset and ownership of delivery.

Responsibilities

• Lead several engineers within a team or workstream, guiding their work towards user value and business opportunity.
• Design, build and own the Python microservices powering our insurance platform.
• Drive architectural discussions across multiple teams and shape backend systems.
• Deliver large, complex initiatives end to end with clear scope and impact.
• Raise engineering standards for testability, reliability and scalability.
• Mentor engineers and help the team level up.
• Improve CI/CD pipelines and incident response, investigate root causes and fix pragmatically.

Skills

Deep backend

Systems at scale

Simplicity

Lead by example

Proactive with people

AI-first mindset

Tools

Python

Job description

About Zego

At Zego, we're on a mission to do the good thing, not the insurance thing.
Insurance hasn't changed much in over a century. The way we live, work and travel has. We're building the real-time, AI-driven infrastructure that powers innovative insurance, so good drivers get cover that works the way they actually drive.
We're not just updating insurance; We're leading the AI evolution in insurance

For us, AI isn't a line on a roadmap or a buzzword on a slide. It's our operating reality, and it's how we build products that back drivers instead of the old insurance playbook.
We don't do things slowly, and we don't do bureaucracy. We back high-performance builders who want ownership, early responsibility and the chance to do the most career-defining work of their lives. You'll get the space to try things, the tools to move fast, and the room to see your ideas reach millions of drivers.

Do not take our word for it. Read what Zegons say about us on Glassdoor.

If you're ready to build the future of insurance, we're hiring.

What you will be doing

• Lead several engineers within a team or workstream, guiding their work towards user value and business opportunity

• Design, build and own the Python microservices that power our insurance platform: secure, observable and built for scale

• Drive architectural discussions and decisions across multiple teams, shaping the future of our backend systems

• Deliver large, complex technical initiatives end to end, with clarity on scope, sequencing and impact

• Raise the bar on engineering excellence: testability, reliability, scalability and clean code

• Coach and mentor engineers, sharing context, feedback and support so the whole team levels up

• Improve how the team works, from CI/CD pipelines to incident response, investigating root causes and fixing them pragmatically

What you will need to be successful

• Deep backend expertise - Hands-on experience building cloud-native microservices, Python preferred, though strong experience in another language works too!

• Systems at scale - You have built distributed architectures and understand performance tuning and observability, on top of solid fundamentals in data structures, algorithms and system design

• You strive for simplicity - You build systems that are easy to understand, test and maintain, and you weigh trade-offs rather than reaching for complexity

• You lead by example - Through mentoring, clear communication and a collaborative mindset, plus the tenacity to find a way forward through ambiguity or tough technical problems

• You are proactive with people beyond engineering - You raise concerns early, engage the right people, and explain technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders

• You work AI-first - You will use AI daily here, and we mean daily. You do not need to arrive an expert, but you do need to arrive curious, experiment fast, and take ownership of getting good quickly. People who wait to be trained will find this uncomfortable

The Zego ways of working

Teams work better with time to collaborate and space to get things done. We call it Zego Hybrid: some of us are in our office (central London or Halifax) weekly, others monthly or quarterly. It's about finding the balance between face time and focus that produces great work and a healthy life around it.

We also make a point of getting everyone in the same room. Teams come together every quarter, and once a year the whole company does, properly. It's a serious investment and consistently one of the best parts of the year.

Benefits

Market-competitive salary, benchmarked against your function and reviewed every year

Annual performance bonus, linked to company performance and your contribution

Share options, a real stake in the company and a share in the future you build

Private medical insurance, for you and your family

Pension, generous holiday, and £1,000 a year to spend on getting to the office or learning something new

Cutting-edge systems and tools, so you always have what you need to drive your impact

Ready to do the most impactful work of your career? We want to hear from you.

Zego, leading the AI evolution in insurance.

Equal opportunities

We're an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.