Lead Software Engineer

BJAK; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

BJAK in London is seeking a Lead Software Engineer to define technical direction and execute across major products. This hands-on role involves system design, coding, and driving critical engineering work from idea to production.

You will mentor engineers, lead architecture decisions, and raise the bar on testing, observability, security, and development practices, while collaborating across backend, frontend, APIs, databases and cloud infrastructure.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of software engineering experience delivering production systems.
• Strong design and architecture skills for complex, scalable platforms.
• Hands-on coding and system-building track record.
• Ability to lead major engineering initiatives and mentor others.

Responsibilities

• Own technical design and execution for major products and systems.
• Design scalable, reliable systems across backend, frontend, APIs, databases and infrastructure.
• Code, prototype, review, and troubleshoot production issues with the team.
• Drive architecture decisions and trade-offs for speed, scalability, reliability, and cost.
• Turn ambiguous problems into clear technical solutions and execution plans.
• Raise engineering quality through design, testing, security, observability, and practices.

Skills

Backend systems design

Frontend systems

Distributed systems

APIs

Databases

Cloud infrastructure

Job description

The Role

BJAK builds technology products used by millions of users across Southeast Asia. As our products and systems scale, we need technical leaders who can solve difficult engineering problems and raise the engineering bar around them.

The Lead Software Engineer owns technical direction and execution for major products and systems. This is a hands-on role - you will design systems, write code, and drive critical engineering work from idea to production.

What You'll Own

• Owning technical design and execution for major products, systems and engineering initiatives.
• Designing scalable, reliable systems across backend, frontend, APIs, databases and infrastructure.
• Building alongside the team through coding, prototyping, code reviews, debugging and production problem-solving.
• Driving architecture decisions and trade-offs across speed, scalability, reliability, cost and maintainability.
• Turning ambiguous product problems into clear technical solutions and execution plans.
• Raising engineering quality through stronger system design, testing, security, observability and development practices.
• Leading technically critical initiatives and mentoring engineers across teams.

What We're Looking For

• 7+ years of software engineering experience building and shipping production systems.
• Deep expertise in backend, frontend, distributed systems, APIs, databases or cloud infrastructure.
• Strong system design and architecture skills for complex or high-scale systems.
• Strong coding ability and willingness to remain hands-on.
• Track record of technically leading major engineering projects from design through production.
• Ability to make sound technical trade-offs, influence engineers and solve complex production problems.

Nice to have

• Experience scaling engineering teams, systems or development practices through significant growth.
• Experience operating across multiple products, markets or countries.

Location

This is a hybrid role. You are expected to work from our local office at least 3 days per week, with the remaining days offering flexibility to work remotely. Candidates should be based in, or able to work from, the location where the role is advertised.

Language

English is our main working language across global teams. Strong English communication is required.

Interview Process

Our process is designed to move fast:

• Online assessment or practical task
• Technical interview
• CEO / final round

For strong candidates, we aim to complete the process and make an offer within 1 week from the start of the interview process. Candidates who complete assessments quickly will be prioritized.