Tech Lead (Backend): Cards

About us: We believe the next generation of financial services will be powered by stablecoins. Founded in 2021, our mission at BVNK is to accelerate global money movement. We’re building stablecoin-native infrastructure so businesses can move value instantly across borders and networks. With global licenses and T1 bank partnerships, we facilitate billions in transactions for enterprise clients like Worldpay, Deel, LianLian Global, and Rapyd. Our technology is transforming how businesses operate globally by eliminating payment delays, reducing costs, and unlocking trapped capital. We’re a diverse team spread across EMEA, North America, and APAC, with a shared belief that stablecoins are the new infrastructure layer for financial services, and that BVNK is at the forefront of this shift. In 2025, we secured strategic investment from Visa, following our $50 million Series B with Haun Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Scribble Ventures, DRW Venture Capital, Avenir, and Tiger Global. With the backing of these leading investors, we’re accelerating our growth – and we're looking for smart, ambitious people to help us build the future of financial services. We're incredibly honored to have made Newsweek's list of The Top 100 Global Most Loved Workplaces three years running (most recently in 2025) and to have been recognised by LinkedIn as one of the Top 20 Startups in the UK in 2024. Location: We offer a Hybrid/Remote working policy. FUNCTION: Engineering As a Tech Lead on the Cards team, you will act as the technical guardian of the squad, overseeing the architecture and delivery of BVNK's card issuing and transaction platform while remaining hands-on in code. You will partner closely with Product, Design, Business and Engineering stakeholders to build secure, compliant systems that enable merchants to offer card products spanning crypto and fiat rails. You will play a key role in defining the technical roadmap for card issuance, tokenization, transaction processing, and settlement - mentoring engineers, driving architectural decisions, and coordinating delivery across multiple workstreams. This role is ideal for someone who enjoys balancing strategic technical leadership with hands-on software engineering in a highly regulated payments domain. Our product and engineering organisation is split into small autonomous squads empowered to own their problem space. You'll be expected to form strong opinions and execute in a fast but sustainable way, advocating for the simplest solution that achieves the outcomes our customers are looking for. Key Areas of Responsibilities: Define and drive the technical architecture for the cards platform (card issuing, tokenization, transaction processing, settlement). Act as the primary technical decision-maker within the squad, including decisions for card infrastructure components. Lead the design and delivery of scalable, compliant systems, APIs, and distributed services. Own the technical roadmap for cards engineering, aligning with product and business objectives. Coordinate delivery across multiple workstreams (card issuance, transactions, settlements, compliance). Contribute hands-on to the codebase through development, debugging, optimisation, and code reviews. Mentor and develop engineers through technical coaching, pairing sessions, and constructive feedback. Promote engineering best practices around testing, CI/CD, observability, reliability, and security. Lead technical assessments and integration design with third-party card providers, evaluating their APIs, security posture, and system capabilities to inform architecture decisions Remove technical blockers and make trade-off decisions to keep projects on track. Facilitate collaboration across squads and represent cards engineering in cross-org technical forums. Partner with Product and Business on prioritisation, translating business requirements into technical solutions. Drive operational excellence by improving monitoring, incident response, and deployment practices. What we need from you: 8–12+ years of professional software engineering experience, including 3–5+ years in senior or technical leadership roles. Proven track record designing and delivering complex, scalable systems such as microservices, event-driven architectures, or high-throughput APIs Experience acting as the primary technical decision-maker for a team or domain, including evaluating trade-offs, selecting technologies, and defining standards. Strong understanding of card payments, issuing programmes, or transaction processing in a regulated environment. Enthusiasm for adopting AI-assisted development tooling (e.g, Claude Code, AI code review agents) to accelerate delivery and improve code quality across the squad Experience with PCI-DSS compliance or similar security/regulatory frameworks. Strong experience leading end-to-end delivery of complex initiatives across multiple sprints. Experience mentoring and developing engineers through coaching, code reviews, and technical guidance. Strong proficiency in Java/Spring Boot. Strong understanding of RESTful APIs, system integration patterns, and data modelling using SQL and/or NoSQL databases. Good understanding of cloud platforms such as AWS, GCP, or Azure. Experience with containerisation and orchestration technologies including Docker and Kubernetes. Experience with observability and reliability tooling including logging, metrics, tracing, and performance optimisation. Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Familiarity with crypto/fiat payment rails and issuer integrations is a plus. Open to participate in an out-of-hours on-call rota. Nice to have Experience working in high-growth or fast-scaling technology environments. Exposure to fintech, payments, or other high-availability transactional systems. Experience contributing to engineering strategy, hiring, or organisational scaling initiatives. What you can expect from us: Fair and competitive salary at every stage of your growth Flexible working hours, with hybrid working at its heart A culture built on passionate, growth-minded people A flexible approach to holiday Opportunities to travel to our offices around the world An open and creative environment where you can help us define the future of BVNK, its culture, and its opportunity sets At BVNK, we are focused on building a diverse and inclusive team. While you may not meet all of our requirements, we’d encourage you to apply if you meet the majority of our expectations. You may be a great fit for this role or another role in our team.