Lead Backend Engineer London

Zego; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 90,000 - 125,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary benchmarked against function

Annual performance bonus

Share options

Private medical insurance

Pension and generous holiday

Learning/commute budget

Job summary

Zego is hiring for a backend engineering leader to design, build and own scalable Python microservices powering our real-time insurance platform. You will guide several engineers, shape backend architecture, and drive end-to-end delivery with a strong emphasis on simplicity, observability, and reliability.

You will collaborate across squads, mentor peers, and advocate AI-first approaches to deliver high-impact solutions in a fast-paced, hybrid London-based environment.

Qualifications

• Proven backend engineering experience with cloud-native microservices.
• Experience designing distributed systems, performance tuning and observability.
• Ability to mentor engineers and drive clarity in ambiguous technical problems.

Responsibilities

• Lead several engineers within a team or workstream toward user value and business opportunities.
• Design, build and own Python microservices powering the insurance platform.
• Drive architectural decisions across multiple teams and backend systems.
• Deliver large technical initiatives end to end with clear scope and sequencing.
• Raise engineering bar: testability, reliability, scalability and clean code.
• Coach and mentor team members to elevate overall performance.
• Improve CI/CD, incident response and root-cause analysis across the team.

Skills

Deep backend

Systems at scale

Simplicity-first design

Mentoring & leadership

Cross-team communication

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 central London office 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.

Here is what the last one looked like.

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.