Senior Backend Engineer (Node or JVM)

LegalAndGeneral; City Of London; On-site; GBP 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading UK financial services firm is seeking a Senior Backend Engineer with expertise in React Native to join their engineering team. In this role, you will be responsible for building high-quality features, resolving issues, and improving team processes. Candidates should have at least three years of backend development experience and solid knowledge of various technologies. The company offers strong benefits including performance bonuses and generous holiday policies.

Benefits

Annual performance-related bonus

Generous pension contribution

Healthcare Plan

At least 25 days holiday

Electric car scheme

Discounts on products and stores

Qualifications

• At least 3 years experience as a backend developer on large commercial projects.
• Solid knowledge of modern architecture patterns and clean code principles.
• Experience with cloud and container technologies.

Responsibilities

• Deliver maintainable features and resolve end-to-end issues with thoughtful engineering.
• Contribute to technical debt strategy for scalable systems.
• Define effective test strategies prioritising security and usability.

Skills

Backend development

React Native

Agile methodologies

GraphQL

Cloud technologies

Quality assurance practices

Software architecture

CI/CD processes

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

AWS

Docker

Node.js

JVM frameworks

Job description

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Company Description

Legal & General (L&G) is a leading UK financial services group and major global investor.

We’ve been safeguarding people’s financial futures since 1836, and strive to build a better society, while improving the lives of our customers and creating value for shareholders.

We are one of the world’s largest asset managers and provide powerful asset origination capabilities. Together, these underpin our retirement and protection solutions: we are an international player in pension risk transfer, in UK and US life insurance, and in UK workplace pensions and retirement income.

Who we are

Our Retail business supports customers throughout their lives, to help them save, plan, protect and enjoy retirement.

We’re a leading provider of retirement and protection solutions. We aim to support our c.12.8 million policyholders and workplace members throughout their lifelong financial journeys.

We focus on helping the customers of today and tomorrow achieve better long-term outcomes. We either talk with them directly or work with intermediaries and employers to meet their needs. We use the latest technology to connect with them quickly, efficiently and wherever possible in highly personalised ways.

Job Description

We are seeking a Senior Backend Engineer with deep expertise in React Native to join our engineering team. In this role, you will apply your software engineering skills to build high-quality features, resolve bugs, and address technical debt. You will also bring a strategic perspective to team processes and tooling, helping to continuously improve how we work and deliver valuable, reliable software to our customers.

What you’ll be doing

• Delivering clean, maintainable features and resolving end-to-end issues by applying thoughtful engineering approaches that ensure solutions are fit for purpose, aligned with standards, and deliver real value to our customers
• Contributing to the technical debt strategy, helping the team maintain secure, resilient, and reliable systems that support long-term scalability and performance
• Defining effective test strategies that prioritise security, usability, and accessibility, ensuring a consistently high-quality customer experience
• Participating in code reviews with a focus on both functional and non-functional requirements, including performance, maintainability, resiliency, and security
• Promoting continuous improvement by encouraging inspection and adaptation to enhance team effectiveness, productivity, and overall wellbeing
• Fostering a collaborative team culture, mentoring and supporting junior engineers to grow their skills and contribute confidently to delivery
• Researching emerging technologies and identifying opportunities to integrate them into our applications, while sharing insights through developer forums to inspire innovation
• Upholding customer-centric values, ensuring all work reflects Legal & General’s principles on Customer Experience and Treating Customers Fairly

Qualifications

Who we’re looking for:

• Backend – at least 3 years experience working as a backend developer on 1 or more large commercial projects (Node or JVM based frameworks)
• Demonstrating solid knowledge of modern architecture patterns, including React fundamentals, REST-based microservices (JVM Spring or Node.js), mobile app design (MVP, MVVM, Flux), and clean code principles (SOLID, Onion, Hexagonal)
• Applying best practices in testing and quality assurance, including test‑driven development, the testing pyramid, and CI/CD pipelines, while working effectively within Agile frameworks such as Scrum
• Utilising cloud and container technologies, with working knowledge of GraphQL, AWS services, and Docker, and a strong understanding of mobile performance optimisation and React Native’s underlying architecture (e.g. Hermes, Fabric, JSI)
• Solving complex engineering challenges, through effective debugging, root cause analysis, and decision‑making that balances short‑term delivery with long‑term scalability and business impact
• Leading and mentoring within teams, by facilitating technical workshops, coaching peers, and contributing to cross‑team process improvements that align with strategic goals
• Designing secure, observable, and scalable software, with a strong grasp of software architecture, threat modelling, and observability practices to ensure resilient and reliable systems
• Driving automation and delivery accountability, by optimising CI/CD processes, breaking down work effectively, managing dependencies, and promoting an operational mindset across engineering teams

Benefits

• The opportunity to participate in our annual, performance‑related bonus plan and valuable share schemes
• Generous pension contribution
• Life assurance
• Healthcare Plan (permanent employees only)
• At least 25 days holiday, plus public holidays, 26 days after 2 years’ service. There’s also the option to buy and sell holiday
• Competitive family leave
• Participate in our electric car scheme, which offers employees the option to hire a brand‑new electric car through tax efficient salary sacrifice (permanent employees only)
• There are the many discounts we offer – both for our own products and at a range of high street stores and online
• In 2023, some of our workspaces were redesigned. Our offices are great spaces to connect and collaborate and have your wellbeing at the heart

Additional Information

At L&G, we believe it’s possible to generate positive returns today while helping to build a better future for all.

If you join us, you’ll be part of a welcoming, inclusive culture, with opportunities to collaborate with people of diverse backgrounds, views, and experiences. Guided by leaders with integrity who care about your future and wellbeing. Empowered through initiatives which support people to develop their careers and excel.

We care passionately about outcomes rather than attendance and are therefore open to discussing all kinds of flexible working options including part‑time, term‑time and job shares. Although some roles have limited flexibility due to customer demand, we accommodate requests when we can.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t meet every single criterion in this advert. Instead, think about what you excel at and what else you can bring in terms of strengths, potential and connection to our purpose.

Videos To Watch

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