(RD) Engineering Team Lead

Backbase; Kraków; On-site; PLN 211,954 - 296,735; Full time

Job summary

Backbase in Kraków, Poland is seeking a Senior Engineer to take on a 'Captain' role within a squad. The ETL functions as a player-coach focused on both leadership and hands-on technical contributions. Responsibilities include optimizing delivery cycles, leading 1:1s and performance calibrations while actively participating in coding and system design.

Ideal candidates have 5+ years of experience in engineering and a strong desire to lead people while remaining engaged in technical work. The role requires a knack for conflict resolution and an ability to drive the use of AI tools within the team.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience with recent production code shipping.
• Desire to lead while remaining a technical contributor.
• High emotional intelligence and resilience under pressure.

Responsibilities

• Optimize the team's delivery cycle time.
• Manage performance reviews, hiring, and team cohesion.
• Lead the adoption of AI tools and workflows.

Skills

Team Leadership

Conflict Resolution

Technical Depth

Emotional Intelligence

System Design

Hands-on Development

Job description

The ETL is the "Captain" of a single squad. This is a "player-coach" role focused on deliverypredictability, people leadership, and day-to-day execution. You are a Senior+ Engineer whomanages people, not a manager who used to code; if you cannot open the IDE and debug aproduction issue, you cannot perform this role.

Meet the Job

• Delivery Mastery: Optimize the team’s "Idea to Production" cycle time andstrengthen delivery predictability.
• Talent Density: Own 1:1s, performance calibration, hiring decisions, and successionplanning for your squad of 6–9 engineers.
• Hands-on Leadership: Spend ~50% of your time on system design and ~20% onhands-on development like code reviews and unblocking technical issues.
• Conflict Resolution: Mediate interpersonal or cross-team conflicts early to protect teamcohesion and delivery.
• BS Detector: Use your technical depth to spot unrealistic estimates, fragile designs,or risk blind spots.
• Emergency Response: During critical incidents, jump in technically or coordinate theresponse effectively.
• AI-Native Engineering: Lead the adoption of agentic tooling, LLM workflows, and AIautomation within your team to accelerate the development lifecycle.

How About You?

• You have 5+ years of experience and have shipped production code recently.
• You have an explicit desire to lead people but remain an active technical contributor.
• You possess high emotional intelligence and resilience under pressure.
• You are a strongunblocker who translates and synthesizes rather than just relaying messages.