Tech Lead - EMEA

Ikigai Digital Limited; Portugal; Hybrid; EUR 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Personal training budget

Industry-leading benefits package

Job summary

Ikigai Digital is seeking a Tech Lead to shape the architectural direction of our digital banking solutions. You will lead a skilled engineering team, drive delivery of complex client projects, and mentor colleagues while staying hands-on with design and coding.

We operate a remote-first model with travel; you’ll influence architectural decisions, ensure robust systems, and foster a learning culture across a distributed organization, enabling scalable, compliant financial services.

Qualifications

• Banking and financial services experience required.
• Proven experience in a tech lead role with team leadership.
• Strong knowledge of Java, Kotlin, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript and frameworks such as Spring, Node.js.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership shaping the banking tech landscape.
• Lead engineers to drive development of client solutions.
• Foster self-managing teams under guidance of the tech lead.
• Mentor and participate in hands-on coding and system design.
• Balance architecture, planning, development and people leadership.
• Support clients in delivering value to customers.
• Contribute feedback to internal developer community.
• Drive NFRs: performance, latency, scalability, high availability, disaster recovery, security.
• Write readable, testable, maintainable, observable code.
• Manage architectural constraints: cost, quality, time, scope, technology, risk, compliance.

Skills

Banking experience

Tech leadership

Team leadership

Communication

Distributed systems

Microservices

Cloud native

CI/CD

Tools

Spring

Node.js

Java

Job description

Portugal, United Kingdom, Poland, United Kingdom

Who are we?

We are a boutique Financial Services consultancyhowever we reject the conventional "consultant-client" script, we are partners with a shared responsibility for outcomes. We put focus on cultural transformation within the client's business and put high emphasis on transparency when we disagree. Sustainable solutions and sustainable ways of working are non-negotiable for us. In summary we live by our values and our Ikigai ways with our clients.

What do we do?

At Ikigai, we specialise in helping clients build, launch, and run successful digital banks. At our core, we are passionate about solving the challenge of creating innovative and reliable financial services that benefit both clients and consumers. Our expertise is built on delivery, and we work side by side with our clients to help them build outstanding digital banks.

What would I be doing as a Tech Lead at Ikigai?

• You will take a technical leadership role in shaping the technological landscape of our digital banking solutions.
• You will lead a team of skilled engineers in driving the development and evolution of effective & efficient client solutions.
• We believe in self managing teams, so team members make the majority of decisions but work under the supervision of the tech lead who helps guide and can call the shots when necessary.
• Project/Client depending, you will contribute to strategic decision-making and mentorship while actively participating in hands-on coding and system design.
• You will be balancing, system architecture, project planning, software development and people leading all rolled into one.
• You’ll be supporting our clients in delivering value to their customers.
• You will support Ikigai as "a learning organisation" by feeding back your project experience into the internal developer community
• Help drive non-functional requirements (NFR’s) that may impact the overall customer experience. Things like;
  • Performance, latency, scalability, high availability, disaster recovery and security.
• Writing code that’s easily readable, testable, maintainable and observable.
• Managing architectural constraints such as, cost, quality, time, scope, technology, risk, compliance and resource.

What do we need from you already?

• We’d love for you to have banking and financial services experience.
• You will need to have proven experience in a tech lead role and have led software development teams in the delivery of complex projects.
• You already have a great understanding of some of the following languages and frameworks that we use;
  • We tend to use; Java, Kotlin, Python, JavaScript/TypeScript.
  • Spring, Node.js.
• You’ve built cloud-based applications.
• You know how to present and communicate your ideas with both technical and non-technical audiences.
• You’ll bring with you a great knowledge of industry standards and controls for delivering services in heavily regulated environments.
• You know how to and also enjoy working in a transparent and collaborative manner within a fully distributed organisation.
• We’re an early stage startup and a consultancy, so you’ll need to be capable of setting your own daily goals and executing on them without heavy direction and oversight.
• You’d have a deep understanding of software architecture and design principles, with a focus on building scalable and maintainable systems.
• Have experience with distributed systems, microservices architecture, and cloud-based solutions.
• Have a strong knowledge of software development best practices, including code reviews, testing, and CI/CD pipelines.

So why Ikigai Digital?

We’re looking to grow our global team by bringing on board creative and proactive individuals to support our global growth and expanding clients in 2025 and beyond. It’s a truly exciting time for us right now, with plenty of opportunities to make a real impact within the business and future Digital Banks across the World, helping millions of people.

We’re a remote first company - this allows you to work from wherever you work best but for this role there will be some elements of travel required. Working remotely comes naturally to us at Ikigai Digital and we’re fully set up to help you succeed from the outset. Iki’ means 'to live', we believe that to 'iki' is more than a daily commute and precious time away from your family and community. Remote first working is one way in which we can increase our Ikigai. Removing the barriers of "in office" is not just beneficial for our employee’s satisfaction but also serves Ikigai as a company by creating greater efficiency, more geographically and culturally diverse teams, and heightened transparency.

There’s open ended career progression here and you’ll be given a $2,000 annual budget for personal training and attending conferences, alongside an industry leading benefits package.

You’ll be joining a startup - this means we operate very differently to larger businesses by trying to remove as much painful process as possible, allowing you to flourish and succeed - why would we hire you for your creativity and then proceed to hold you back. Ikigai trusts and empowers people, as opposed to command and control. You have an idea, let us know! You think something could be better, let us know!

Transparency and vulnerability are essential for effective collaboration yet also risky, so we promote a safe environment without embarrassing, shaming or punishing team members. Good news or bad, we call it as it is. We share so that there are no surprises and we can learn together. We believe this heightened level of transparency helps us work better together and also gives us a competitive advantage when our customers know that we are all in it together.

Even though we’re remote and we love it, we often meet up when it suits us, when it’s productive and of course when it’s fun! We find it ideal for celebrating our big wins, for team meetings and for social events AND don’t forget our yearly company-wide get-togethers in the sun too! In 2023 we went to Thailand, in 2024 we visited Portugal and in 2025 we’ve just been to Vietnam!

Find out more

Not everything fits into a job ad, so to find out more about Ikigai Digital, our plans, the job, the package, anything – message me, Craig Felston at [e-mail].