Lead Backend Engineer - PayLink

Salla; Jeddah; On-site; SAR 480,000 - 720,000; Full time

Job summary

Salla in Jeddah seeks a hands-on Engineering Lead to set the technical direction for a Java/Spring Boot backend and to grow a high-performing team of backend engineers in a fintech environment.

You will design payment-critical services and APIs, own code quality, testing and release readiness, ensure security and reliability, and mentor engineers while collaborating with architecture and product. AI coding tools (Claude Code) are essential.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of Java backend experience with strong Spring Boot.
• Hands-on payments/fintech experience required on real systems.
• Experience with at least one payment processor or gateway (e.g. MPGS, Cybersource, mada).
• Strong microservices, REST API design, relational databases and automated testing.
• Delivery on containers (Kubernetes) with CI/CD.
• AI-augmented engineering using AI tools in daily development.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on technical leadership for backend engineering on a modern Java/Spring Boot stack.
• Design and build payment-critical backend services and APIs.
• Own code quality: standards, code review, testing and release readiness.
• Ensure correctness, reliability and security across the services the team owns.
• Mentor and grow backend engineers, and work closely with architecture and product.

Skills

Java backend

Spring Boot

Payments / fintech experience

Microservices

REST API design

Automated testing

CI/CD

Kubernetes

AI coding tools

Education

Bachelor degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

CI/CD pipelines

Claude Code / AI coding tools

Job description

A hands-on engineering lead who sets technical direction, owns code quality, and builds payment-critical backend services on a modern Java stack, while guiding and growing a team of backend engineers.

What you'll do

• Provide hands-on technical leadership for backend engineering on a modern Java / Spring Boot stack.
• Design and build payment-critical backend services and APIs.
• Own code quality: standards, code review, testing and release readiness.
• Ensure correctness, reliability and security across the services the team owns.
• Mentor and grow backend engineers, and work closely with architecture and product.

• 8+ years in Java backend with strong Spring Boot.
• Proven technical leadership while remaining hands-on in the code.
• Hands-on payments / fintech experience is required — you have worked on real payment or financial-transaction systems.
• Hands-on experience with at least one payment processor or gateway (e.g. MPGS, Cybersource or mada). This is a requirement for this role.
• Strong microservices, REST API design, relational databases and automated testing.
• Delivery on containers (Kubernetes) with CI/CD.
• AI-augmented engineering — you actively use AI coding tools such as Claude Code in your day-to-day development. This is a requirement for this role.

Nice to have

• Experience with more than one payment processor / gateway.
• Cloud platforms (OCI, AWS or Azure); event-driven systems (Kafka).