Hybrid Backend Engineering Lead

at Reward Gateway

• Job title: Backend Engineering Lead
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Senior
• Salary: €58,000 - €60,000 per year
• Degree requirement: Bachelor's Degree
• Tech skills: Cloud, Microservices, PHP
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Plovdiv, Bulgaria

About the role

• Backend Engineering Lead at Reward Gateway connecting users through digital services and payments. Leading a team in design reviews, improvements, and platform management.

Responsibilities

• Drive a security-first culture by defining and enforcing security protocols
• Lead threat modelling and oversee vulnerability remediation plans
• Track security compliance
• Set platform performance KPIs
• Conduct performance analysis
• Monitoring dashboards
• Guide teams in implementing scalable solutions and optimising system performance
• Establish organisation-wide testing standards and ensure adherence through coaching and reviews
• Promote quality ownership within teams
• Define and enforce API design principles
• Oversee API governance and documentation standards across the team
• Identify areas of technical debt and lead strategic refactoring initiatives
• Track and measure technical debt reduction progress
• Prioritise optimisation projects that improve system health
• Make strategic decisions on introducing new frameworks and tools
• Evaluate emerging technologies and guide adoption to improve productivity
• Lead the transition to microservices/event-driven architecture
• Define architectural patterns and mentor teams on implementation best practices
• Maintain system design documentation and Architecture decision records (ADRs)
• Develop clear documentation guidelines to ensure consistency and quality
• Maintain detailed documentation for complex systems, including architecture diagrams, workflows, and integration points, ensuring accessibility for all stakeholders
• Implement and manage a structured process for creating incident reports, capturing root causes, and resolutions to drive continuous improvement
• Set clear objectives, monitor KPIs, and ensure timely delivery of high-quality solutions
• Drive career progression through regular feedback, mentoring and knowledge-sharing to support in identifying growth opportunities

Requirements

• Solid and proven experience as a Backend Engineer with a minimum of 2+ years of experience in a technical leadership role
• Proven team management and leadership skills
• Experience with PHP is required
• Experience with OOP concepts and SOLID principles
• Experience with Unit and Integration testing
• Experience with design patterns
• A good understanding of building and operating cloud-based microservices
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills
• Strong problem-solving, critical thinking, and analytical skills

Benefits

• Online interview with the Senior Talent Partner and an Engineering Manager. This should last no longer than 45 minutes.
• The final video interview of 90 minutes will consist of 3 stages. This includes: 60 minutes to discuss your experience and technical abilities; 20 minutes to review and discuss a coding exercise; 10 minutes to ask questions you may have
• Be comfortable. Be you. At Reward Gateway, we want all of our employees to feel comfortable bringing their passion, creativity and individuality to work. We value all cultures, backgrounds and experiences, as we truly believe that diversity drives innovation. Express yourself, join our community and help us Make the World a Better Place to Work.
• From perks to people, our BETTER approach to hiring earns us more trust, happier people and more world-class talent that help us to make the world a better place to work. Find out more about Reward Gateways approach to benefits, equality, talent, technology, empathy and what you’ll get in return for joining our Mission at rg.co/lifeatrg.