Staff Backend Engineer

DEPOP; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 80,000 - 100,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading online marketplace in the UK seeks a Staff Backend Engineer to lead technical efforts in Payments and Fulfilment systems. In this role, you will partner with product and engineering teams to ensure scalable, secure solutions, driving technical design and implementation, while mentoring other engineers. Ideal candidates will have proven experience in a senior technical leadership role, with skills in Scala, Java, or TypeScript, along with cloud platform expertise. The position offers competitive benefits, including flexible working models and health support.

Benefits

Health + Mental Wellbeing support

Flexible Working options

25 days annual leave

Paid parental leave

Life Insurance

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Staff Engineer or senior technical leadership role.
• Expertise in designing and building distributed systems at scale.
• Strong programming skills with cloud platform knowledge.
• Ability to define technical strategies and execute them.

Responsibilities

• Partner with stakeholders to translate goals into platform capabilities.
• Drive design and implementation of Payments and Fulfilment features.
• Champion engineering excellence and set high technical standards.
• Mentor and coach engineers to elevate technical capabilities.

Skills

Scala

Java

TypeScript

Cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)

Event-driven architectures (Kafka)

Distributed systems design

Leadership

Job description

In 2025 our ambition is to be a high-performing, delivery-focused organisation and the best engineering organisation for those who value meaningful career growth.

We are looking for a UK based Staff Backend Engineer to be a key technical leader within the teams responsible for Depop's Payments and Fulfilment systems, ensuring we provide our users with a best‑in‑class payments and shipping experience. You should feel equally at home around a whiteboard with a group of engineers, as you are explaining complex technical topics and why they matter to leadership and non‑technical stakeholders. You'll own and drive the technical vision for how we can evolve the architecture, to fundamentally shift our product squads' ability to move at speed and drive further innovation & improvements for our users in the space.

You will work closely with multiple product squads, other Staff and Backend engineers, and product & engineering leaders, providing deep technical expertise to ensure our Payment and Fulfilment systems are scalable, secure, observable, and fit for our future growth ambitions.

Responsibilities

• Partner with senior stakeholders across Product, Engineering, Finance and Ops to translate strategic goals into well‑architected, scalable platform capabilities.
• Drive the technical design and implementation of key Payments and Fulfilment features, providing hands‑on coding and architectural leadership.
• Define and evolve the technical roadmap for our Payments and Fulfilment systems, ensuring they're extensible for Product squads, and simple for engineers to work with.
• Champion engineering excellence, setting high technical standards and advocating for best practices in system design, maintainability, performance, and building for speed.
• Lead efforts to evangelise and generate buy‑in for why the technical work in this area is of high importance.
• Mentor and coach engineers, elevating the technical capabilities of the teams around you and fostering a culture of technical excellence.
• Identify and address complex technical challenges and bottlenecks, proposing and implementing effective solutions.

Qualifications

• Proven experience as a Staff Engineer or equivalent senior technical leadership role working across the Backend at scale, ideally in a consumer or marketplace environment.
• Deep expertise in designing, building, and operating distributed systems and platforms at scale.
• Exceptional programming skills in Scala, Java, or TypeScript, with deep cloud platform expertise (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Familiarity with event‑driven architectures using Kafka.
• A strong technical background with a track record of hands‑on architecture and development of complex backend systems.
• Ability to think strategically and pragmatically: you can define long‑term technical strategies and execute rapidly, bringing others along with you.
• Excellent communication and collaboration skills; you're comfortable influencing technical direction and aligning diverse stakeholders across the organisation.

Bonus points if

• You've previous experience in Fulfilment or Payments, including integration with vendors such as Stripe, PayPal, or shipping providers.
• Prior work in fashion, marketplaces, fintech, or sustainability‑driven tech.

Additional information

Health + Mental Wellbeing PMI and cash plan healthcare access with Bupa Subsidised counselling and coaching with Self Space Cycle to Work scheme with options from Evans or the Green Commute Initiative Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) for 24/7 confidential support.

Mental Health First Aiders across the business for support and signposting.

Work/Life Balance: 25 days annual leave with option to carry over up to 5 days, 1 company‑wide day off per quarter.

Impact hours: Up to 2 days additional paid leave per year for volunteering.

Fully paid 4 week sabbatical after completion of 5 years of consecutive service with Depop, to give you a chance to recharge or do something you love.

Flexible Working: MyMode hybrid‑working model with Flex, Office Based, and Remote options *role dependant. All offices are dog‑friendly.

Ability to work abroad for 4 weeks per year in UK tax treaty countries.

Family Life: 18 weeks of paid parental leave for full‑time regular employees, IVF leave, shared parental leave, and paid emergency parent/carer leave.

Learn + Grow: Budgets for conferences, learning subscriptions, and more Mentorship and programmes to upskill employees.

Your Future: Life Insurance (financial compensation of 3x your salary) Pension matching up to 6% of qualifying earnings.

Depop Extras: Employees enjoy free shipping on their Depop sales within the UK. Special milestones are celebrated with gifts and rewards!