Staff Backend Engineer

Fresha; City Of London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading beauty and wellness marketplace is seeking a Senior Staff Backend Engineer in London to provide technical vision and leadership. This role involves hands-on coding, cross-team initiatives, and architectural responsibilities in a fast-paced environment. Ideal candidates have a strong problem-solving background and the ability to engage across teams. Join a company that values inclusivity and encourages applicants of diverse backgrounds.

Benefits

Flexible remote work

Dog friendly office

Qualifications

• Demonstrated track record of delivering large systems on time and at high quality.
• Ability to break down complex problems into viable solutions.
• Aptitude for debugging challenging problems.

Responsibilities

• Own and deliver technical initiatives across teams.
• Provide guidance and anticipate technical issues.
• Ensure timely delivery of projects impacting Fresha’s success.

Skills

Problem-solving

Delivery

Debugging

Adaptability

Architecture

Job description

About Fresha

Fresha is the leading marketplace platform for beauty and wellness trusted by millions of consumers and businesses worldwide. Fresha is used by 130,000+ businesses and 450,000+ stylists and professionals worldwide, processing over 1 billion appointments to date.

The company is headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with 15 global offices located across North America, EMEA and APAC. Fresha allows consumers to discover, book and pay for beauty and wellness appointments with local businesses via its marketplace, while beauty and wellness businesses and professionals use an all-in-one platform to manage their entire operations with an intuitive business software and financial technology solutions. Fresha’s ecosystem gives merchants everything they need to run their business seamlessly by facilitating appointment bookings, point-of-sale, customer records management, marketing automation, loyalty, beauty products inventory and team management. The consumer marketplace unlocks revenue potential for partner businesses by leveraging the power of online bookings and automated marketing through mobile apps and advanced integrations with major tech brands including Instagram, Facebook and Google.

Role Overview

Given our exciting and progressive growth plans, we are looking for an exceptional Senior Staff Backend Engineer to come join our global business. Reporting directly to the Head of Engineering for a tribe, and working with key stakeholders, you will be accountable for technical vision, strategy and execution in your team and proactively manage technical risks at Fresha.

This is a great opportunity for someone looking to work in a fast-paced and changing environment, who likes to work autonomously, enjoys a challenge and wants to make an impact.

To foster a collaborative environment that thrives on face-to-face interactions and teamwork, all Fresha employees work from our dog friendly office four days per week, with the flexibility to work remotely one day each week. London office: The Bower, 207, 211 Old St, London EC1V 9NR.

What you will be doing

• Technical - This is a heavily technical role, hands-on coding skills are expected. It’s not a management role.
• Leadership - Own and deliver cross-team and cross-tribal technical initiatives.
• Architectural - Take ownership of architecture for a tribe.
• Guidance - Provide technical guidance; anticipate technical issues at the product level and make architectural and design decisions to avoid them.
• Improvements - Create sweeping improvements in stability, performance and scalability across major business-critical systems.
• Delivery - Ensure timely delivery of your team’s projects, which will have a tangible impact on Fresha’s success.
• Lead-by-example - Ensure your team follows engineering practices by leading from the front.
• Collaboration - Work closely with Product, Design, Data and QA to ensure clear goals and regular delivery of value to users.
• Learning - Facilitate continuous learning and improvement for your team.
• Standards - Ensure systems meet Fresha quality, reliability and scalability standards.
• Innovative - Anticipate broad technical changes and keep Fresha ahead of the curve.
• Strategic - Recognise and make trade-offs for the whole system; understand the entire architecture and articulate scaling and reliability limits.
• Multiplier - Act as a multiplier by building systems, tooling or policies that raise productivity across the org.
• Communication - Communicate Fresha's tech leadership externally and guide internal discussions about major technology direction to inspire engineers.
• Note: This list is not exhaustive and there may be other activities you are required to deliver.

What we are looking for

• Delivery - Demonstrated track record of delivering large systems involving multiple teams on time and at high quality.
• Problem-solving - Ability to break down complex problems into viable solutions, knowns and unknowns, to reach solid resolutions quickly.
• Debugging - Aptitude for debugging the most challenging problems.
• Strategy - Experience in developing multi-year technology strategy for critical areas spanning multiple systems and teams.
• Adaptability - Designed architectures that enable multiple potential futures.
• Relationships - Ability to engage with teams across the business and influence effectively, including upwards.
• Facilitation - Guide debates to reach consensus and clearly communicate decisions.
• Planning - Set short- to mid-term strategic technical directions and create plans for 6–12 months ahead.
• Mentorship - Seen as a role model and mentor to technical team members.
• Contribution - Recognised contributor to core and side projects.
• Simplification - Reduce complexity to enable progress with less effort.
• Architecture - Shape broad architecture; deliver large services and infrastructure pieces.
• Impact - Positive impact on the company’s technical trajectory.
• Team-player - Willingness to help the team when needed.
• Proactive - Self-starter with a proactive approach.
• Adaptive - Comfortable in a fast-paced, changing environment.
• At Fresha, we value passion and potential as much as specific skills. If you're enthusiastic and eager to learn, we encourage you to apply, even if you don't meet every listed requirement.

Interview Process

• Screening with TA: 45-60 minutes
• Part 1: 60 minutes with CTO & Chief Architect (Culture fit & high level tech)
• Part 2: 2.5 hour technical stage with Head of Data Engineering + 1 Backend Engineer
• Part 3: 1 hour meeting with Head of Engineering / CTO / Chief Architect

We aim to complete the entire interview process and deliver feedback within 4 weeks. Every job application received is reviewed manually by our talent team. While we strive to assess applications within 7 days, the sheer volume of talented individuals expressing interest may occasionally extend this timeframe.

Inclusive workforce

At Fresha, we are creating a culture where individuals of all backgrounds feel comfortable. We want all Fresha people to feel included and truly empowered to contribute fully to our vision and goals. Everyone who applies will receive fair consideration for employment. We do not discriminate based on race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, gender identity, national origin, disability, or any other legally protected characteristics in the location in which the candidate is applying. If you have any accessibility requirements that would make you more comfortable during the interview process and/or once you join, please let us know so that we can support you.