Staff Engineer

Cleo; Greater London; On-site; GBP 110,000 - 150,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Health insurance

Sabbatical after four years

Pension/retirement contributions

Learning & development platform

Location-specific leave entitlements

Job summary

Cleo in London is hiring a Staff Backend Engineer for its Financial Assistant Pillar. You\'ll shape technical direction across multiple functional product squads and stay hands-on with Rails APIs, data models, and scalable services.

You will mentor engineers, collaborate with senior peers, and drive delivery that improves users\' financial health while building reusable patterns across the engineering organization.

Qualifications

• Lead multi-team initiatives and define scalable backend architecture.
• Hands-on development with Rails APIs and data models.
• Mentor engineers and tech leads to elevate technical capabilities.
• Influence technical strategy and align squads around a common direction.

Responsibilities

• Define architecture and drive delivery across product squads.
• Ship ambitious product work that improves users' financial health.
• Build shared systems and tooling to raise engineering standards.
• Stay hands-on in Rails monolith with scalable services and APIs.
• Mentor engineers and TLs to grow the next generation of leaders.

Skills

Ruby on Rails

Architectural direction

Mentoring

Leadership

System design

Tools

AWS

Kubernetes

PostgreSQL

Python

Job description

Most money apps talk at you. Cleo talks back

We're not building another finance app. We're building the world's first AI financial assistant, one that actually understands your money and makes you better at it, and we're changing the world's relationship with money in the process

The proof: profitable, fast-growing, a unicorn with over $300M in ARR, and millions of people who now feel differently about their money.

We love original thinkers who challenge the status quo. We move fast, tell the truth, and there's nowhere to hide from good work here. If that excites you more than it scares you, you'll fit right in.

Follow us on LinkedIn for new features and the occasional roast

Meet the Team

Here at Cleo, we have ~200 Engineers organised into Pillars. Our stack spans a Ruby on Rails monolith, a single React Native (TypeScript) app frontend, Python for machine learning services, and PostgreSQL, all hosted on AWS and shipped through Kubernetes - backend goes out multiple times a week, app releases to Google and Apple at least weekly. To thrive here, our engineers proactively use our Engineering Principles to guide daily decisions, take ownership of problems beyond their own squad to drive broader impact, and actively drive their own learning, development, and growth.

About the Role

We're hiring a Staff Backend Engineer for our Financial Assistant Pillar. You'll shape technical direction and drive delivery across multiple functional product squads.

Key responsibilities for this role include:

• Partnering with senior peers to define architecture and lead complex, high-impact initiatives
• Bringing teams together to ship ambitious product work that improves users' financial health
• Building shared systems, patterns, and tooling that raise the bar across engineering
• Staying hands-on in our Ruby on Rails monolith - designing APIs, data models, and scalable services
• Anticipating risks and opportunities early, influencing plans and technical strategy
• Mentoring engineers and TLs, growing the next generation of technical leaders

What We're Looking For

• You’re excited by the opportunity to own and influence technical direction at a pillar level
• You’ve operated at senior/staff level across multiple teams or complex domains
• You bring strong technical judgment and think in long-term, scalable solutions
• You’re comfortable leading without authority and aligning teams around a shared direction
• You have a track record of building systems and practices used beyond your immediate team
• You enjoy mentoring and raising the bar for others
• You have strong, hands-on experience with Ruby on Rails (essential)

What we offer

We offer benefits package built to support you in and out of work. Benefits vary by country and include meaningful equity, comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance, mental health support, a paid one-month sabbatical after four years, a learning and development platform, pension or retirement contributions, and location-specific leave entitlements.
For the full breakdown on what's available in your location, visit our Candidate Hub

What Matters

Cleo's mission is to change the world's relationship with money. We can't do that without building a brilliant, genuinely diverse team - and making sure our hiring process gives everyone a fair shot, running a fair and transparent recruitment process in which every candidate is considered on their metris.

We're glad to make reasonable adjustments at any stage of the process. If there's anything we can do to support you in showing us your best, please let your recruiter or one of the team know.

We may use AI-assisted tools during the recruitment process to take support the team in different ways like taking notes or referring back to conversations. They do not replace the team and all applications are reviewed by a Cleo employee thoroughly!