Senior Backend Engineer

MFK Recruitment; United Kingdom; Remote; GBP 75,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

MFK Recruitment partners with a software company hiring a Senior Backend Engineer for a fully remote role open to the UK and Europe. You will join a world-class engineering team building a platform that exposes complex clinical trial insights and enables AI-driven workflows.

The role focuses on the backend analytics and language tooling, developing parsers and compilers, leading design and testing, and driving performance improvements in a collaborative environment.

Qualifications

• Proficient in Java and at least one other language.
• Experience with parsing algorithms, interpreters, and compilers.
• Strong understanding of graph theory and algorithm implementation.
• Experience with deep root-cause analysis to identify and resolve bugs.
• Experience identifying and resolving performance and scalability issues.
• Collaborative mindset with a strong team focus.
• Clear communication and ability to explain complex technical problems.
• Documentation-led approach and iterative mindset.

Responsibilities

• Develop the code analytics and backend components of the platform.
• Lead design, build, and testing across the backend stack.
• Create parsers/compilers for programming languages used by data teams.
• Identify root causes, troubleshoot issues, and deploy fixes.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to improve performance and reliability.

Skills

Programming languages

Parsing algorithms

Interpreters/compilers

Java

Graph theory

Root-cause analysis

Performance & scalability

Team collaboration

Communication

Documentation

Iterative mindset

Tools

Antlr4

Docker

Kubernetes

Git

GitHub Actions

Job description

Senior Backend Engineer

Remote | UK or Europe

Salary: £75,000 to £100,000 for UK-based candidates. Salary offered in other countries will vary depending on location.

I am working with a software company I know exceptionally well, having helped build a large proportion of their engineering team over the last few years.

They are continuing to grow and are now looking to hire a Senior Backend Engineer to join their world-class team.

This is a fully remote role open to candidates across the UK and Europe, with occasional meetups with colleagues in different locations.

This is a genuinely exciting opportunity to join a business building advanced technology that supports highly regulated processes at the heart of medical progress and innovation. Their platform helps specialist users plan, explore, build, validate, submit, and review complex clinical trial outputs faster, more accurately, and with greater confidence.

The role

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will join a high-calibre engineering team working on a platform that exposes complex clinical trial insights to a range of specialist users, including data managers, statistical programmers, statisticians, medical experts, writers, and regulatory authorities.

Your work will support a number of core platform modules focused on the planning, exploration, onboarding, build, validation, submission, and review of clinical trials and their results. These modules are central to helping users deliver critical work faster, at higher quality, lower cost, and with greater confidence.

The wider platform analyses clinical trial documentation, code, logs, data, and results to build a knowledge graph through code traceability. This creates structured information infrastructure that can be used by experts and consumed by AI systems to transform how therapies are evaluated and brought to market. The platform also supports automated and semi-automated workflows, alongside visualisations designed to help customers gain insight as quickly as possible.

What you’ll be doing

This role will focus on the code analytics and backend layer of the platform.

You will develop parsers and compilers for programming languages such as SAS, R, and Python used by statistical programmers and data scientists to analyse clinical trials. You will then transform code, data, specifications, and statistical results into complex graphs and related data structures that are used by the platform to expose its core functionality to users and support AI-driven automation across planning, analysis, validation, and submission workflows.

You will be expected to lead the analysis, design, build, and testing of components across the code analytics and backend stack. As part of the core team, you will also help design and prioritise new functionality, troubleshoot customer issues, identify root causes, and deploy fixes that improve both platform performance and user impact.

Tech stack / environment

The engineering environment includes:

• Java
• SAS
• R
• Python
• Antlr4
• graph-based data structures and backend systems
• Next.js
• Docker
• Kubernetes
• Argo Workflows
• Git
• GitHub Actions

What they are looking for

They are looking for a strong backend engineer with a real interest in programming languages, code analysis, and building complex systems in a modern engineering environment.

Key experience includes:

• experience with and strong interest in programming languages, parsing algorithms, interpreters, and compilers
• extensive experience in Java (or a low-level language) and at least one other programming language
• experience with and clear understanding of graph theory and algorithm implementation
• experience carrying out deep root-cause analysis to identify and resolve bugs
• experience identifying and resolving performance and scalability issues
• a collaborative mindset and strong team focus
• strong communication skills and the ability to explain complex technical problems and solutions clearly
• the ability to foresee risks and align work across multiple teams and colleagues
• a strong documentation-led approach
• an iterative mindset with a focus on continuous improvement

Nice to have

• experience with compilers or interpreters
• experience with Antlr4 or a similar parsing framework
• experience with R
• experience with R, Python, or interpreted programming language execution

Why apply?

This is an opportunity to join a team working on genuinely advanced backend and language-engineering challenges in an environment where the work has clear real-world value.

You will be helping to build the core systems behind a platform that improves the speed, quality, and confidence of highly important scientific and regulatory workflows, while joining a strong engineering culture built around collaboration, ownership, technical quality, and continuous improvement.