Senior Product Engineer (Backend) - Developer Products

Kota, incorporated; London (KY); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health Insurance

Workplace Pension

WFH stipend

Group Life Assurance

Generous PTO

Annual offsite

Job summary

Kota Embed is seeking a Senior Product Engineer (Backend) to shape APIs and SDKs powering embedded insurance and retirement benefits for platforms worldwide. You will design resilient systems, own end-to-end architecture, and deliver developer-first experiences for Kota’s customers.

You’ll partner with designers and engineers across Kota to build scalable, secure products, drive incident response, and continuously improve developer-facing APIs and docs.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in building backend systems.
• .NET 8+ experience; SQL databases and ORM frameworks.
• Cloud experience with Azure or AWS.
• Experience with API products in fintech/payroll/benefits is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Drive API and SDK enhancements to scale Kota’s embed products.
• Collaborate with Kota teams to refine procedures and improve customer experiences.
• Own incident management and foster a blameless culture of learning and iteration.
• Architect future enhancements to strengthen product and processes.

Skills

.NET 8+

SQL databases

ORM frameworks

Automated test frameworks

Azure/AWS

8+ years backend

API products in fintech/payroll/benef

Tools

API design tools

Job description

About Kota

Kota is making insurance and retirement benefits as accessible as modern software. We do this across the Kota Platform - the world’s first fully integrated benefits platform and Kota Embed - our embedded insurance and retirement product for platforms.

Our mission is to make insurance and benefits more accessible and delightful to this generation of employees.

Kota was started in 2022 and has raised over €20m from Europe’s top technology investors, including Eurazeo, EQT Ventures, Northzone, Frontline, and angels, including Romain Huet, formerly of Stripe, now Open AI, and David Clarke, formerly of Workday. The companies our investors have previously backed or built include Spotify, Airbnb, Klarna, Truelayer, Snapchat, Workday, Personio, Workvivo, Pointy, Workable, Wayflyer, and more.

The role

As a Senior Product Engineer (Backend) on the Kota Embed team, you’ll play a central role in shaping the APIs and SDKs that power embedded insurance and retirement benefits for platforms around the world. This is not just about writing code - it’s about designing resilient systems, solving complex product challenges, and creating developer-first experiences that our customers rely on to serve their employees.

You’ll partner closely with designers, and engineers, integrations team, and benefit experts across Kota to turn ideas into reliable, scalable, and secure products. In this role, you’ll be expected to take ownership end-to-end from technical architecture and system design, to incident response and continuous improvement of our developer-facing APIs and docs.

We’re looking for someone who thrives at the intersection of product thinking and engineering craft - an engineer who is as motivated by the "why" as they are by the "how," and who wants to leave a lasting impact on how benefits are delivered globally. An engineer who obsesses over developer experience.

What You’ll Do

Being a part of our embed team, you will be responsible to

• Drive innovation: Build and enhance products to scale Kota’s API and embed products.
• Collaborate for impact: Work closely with teams across Kota to refine procedures, ensuring excellent customer experiences and operational efficiency.
• Own incident management: Serve as an incident responder for technical issues, fostering a blameless culture of learning and iterating for improvement.
• Architect for the future: Research, design, and implement enhancements that strengthen our product and processes.

A glimpse into your week might include:

• Architecting and building new features, for our customer facing APIs and SDKs
• Transforming inefficient internal workflows into self-service features that delight customers and save time.
• Leading technical efforts to resolve customer-reported issues as part of the incident response team.

What We're Looking For

• Experience: 8+ years in building backend systems with expertise in:
• .NET (we use latest 8+), SQL databases, ORM frameworks. Automated test frameworks
• Cloud experience with Azure/AWS
• Experience with building API products in fintech, payroll, or benefits is a plus.
• You thrive in collaborative environments and enjoy solving complex challenges.
• Experience collaborating directly with product teams and designers, and a proven track record of delivering value to customers or users.
• Availability: At least 5 hours of overlap with GMT working hours.

And of course.... Your employee benefits!

• Competitive salary and equity in a fast-growing start-up
• Health Insurance contribution via Kota.
• Access to a Workplace Pension with matched contributions (depending on location)
• WFH stipend to support your home office needs.
• Group Life Assurance via Kota.
• Generous PTO - work hard and take the time you need.
• Annual, company-wide offsite.

Our Hiring Process

• Introductory Call (30 minutes): Meet one or two members of our product team to learn more about Kota and the role.
• Technical Interview (1 hour + 1 hours): A collaborative and open-book session with two of our engineers split into two sessions.
• Call with Founders (30 minutes): We are a small but growing team and we would want share our vision with you and hear your thoughts.

• Final Response: We'll follow up promptly with next steps.
  

We are an equal-opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate based on race, religion, colour, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.