Staff Backend Engineer - Developer Productivity

About Tide

At Tide we help SMEs save time (and money) in the running of their businesses by not only offering business accounts and related banking services, but also a comprehensive set of highly usable and connected administrative solutions from invoicing to accounting.

Tide is transforming the small business banking market with over 1.8 million members globally across the UK, India, Germany and France. Using advanced technology, all solutions are designed with SMEs in mind. With quick onboarding, low fees and innovative features, we thrive on making data-driven decisions to serve our mission: to help SMEs save both time (and money) so they can get back to doing what they love.

Tide Facts

• Tide is available for UK, Indian, German and French SMEs
• Over 1.8 million members: 800,000 UK and 1,000,000 in India and growing rapidly
• Over $300 million raised in funding
• Over 2,500 Tideans globally - we’re diversity champions!
• We have offices in Central London, with a member support and technology centre in Sofia, Bulgaria, technology centres in Serbia, Romania, Lithuania and Hyderabad and offices in Gurugram and New Delhi, and in Berlin, Paris and Luxembourg.

About The Team

The Developer Productivity (DevPro) team is the driving force behind engineering efficiency at Tide. We are a specialized, internal-facing team dedicated to empowering our backend engineers by eliminating friction, automating repetitive tasks, and creating an exceptional development experience. Our mission is to accelerate the delivery of high-quality software, enabling our product teams to focus on building innovative solutions for our members.

We Achieve This By

• Developing and maintaining core Java libraries that are the backbone of our backend services.
• Building robust CI/CD pipelines optimized specifically for our backend tech stack.
• Creating self-service tooling that simplifies common workflows, from local development to production deployments.
• Championing engineering best practices, ensuring our codebase is scalable, maintainable, and secure.

About The Staff Backend Engineer - Developer Productivity Role

We are seeking a Staff Backend Engineer - Developer Productivity. In this role, you will act as a force multiplier, applying your deep backend expertise to solve the most critical challenges facing our engineering organization. This isn't just about building infrastructure; it's about crafting the tools and frameworks that define how we build and ship software.

The ideal candidate is a seasoned backend engineer with a passion for improving the developer experience. You will have extensive experience with the Java ecosystem, including Spring/Spring Boot and Gradle or Maven, and a proven track record of designing solutions that scale. You'll be proactive, analytical, and an excellent collaborator who can influence and mentor engineers across the business.

As a Staff Backend Engineer - Developer Productivity you’ll:

• Architect and own the internal Java libraries that abstract complexity and standardize development across hundreds of microservices.
• Lead the optimization of our backend CI/CD pipelines, focusing on performance, reliability, and security for Java/Spring applications.
• Drive critical initiatives such as dependency upgrades and framework migrations to ensure our core tech stack remains modern and secure.
• Develop and maintain internal tooling that automates workflows and reduces "toil" for backend teams.
• Serve as a subject-matter expert on testing strategies, build systems (Gradle), and code quality, creating and advocating for company-wide standards.
• Mentor senior and junior engineers on best practices for performance, scalability, and code maintainability.

What We Are Looking For

• Deep expertise in the Java ecosystem (7+ years): Proven experience designing, building, and maintaining production-grade applications using Spring/Spring Boot.
• Strong proficiency in build automation and dependency management: Extensive experience with Gradle or Maven is essential, including multi-module builds, custom plugins, and dependency versioning.
• CI/CD Pipeline mastery: Hands-on experience optimizing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions or other similar tools like GitLab CI) specifically for large-scale backend services.
• A passion for developer enablement: A track record of creating internal tools, libraries, or frameworks that have measurably improved engineering efficiency.
• Solid understanding of software engineering best practices: Expertise in unit testing, integration testing, static analysis, and code quality tools.
• Cloud and containerization knowledge: Experience with AWS services, Docker, and Kubernetes is necessary to build effective solutions that integrate with our infrastructure.
• Mentorship and communication: Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to influence technical decisions and mentor engineers at all levels.

Our Tech Stack

• Backend and Database: Java, Python, Spring/Spring Boot, Gradle, PostgreSQL, RESTful APIs, Event-driven architecture (AWS SQS, SNS)
• Development And Deployment: AWS cloud and their services (SQS, S3, EKS), Docker, Kubernetes, Microservice architecture, GitHub with GitHub Actions for CI/CD pipelines
• Monitoring And Analytics: DataDog, Semgrep

Note: New joiners are encouraged to deploy to production within their first two weeks.

What You’ll Get In Return

• Remote first
• 25 days of paid annual leave
• 3 paid days off for volunteering or L&D activities
• Private Health Insurance
• Mental Health Support Platform
• FitPass
• Family and friendly leave (according to statutory)
• Personal L&D budget
• Share Options

Key skills/competency

• Java Ecosystem
• Spring/Spring Boot
• CI/CD Pipelines
• Gradle/Maven
• Developer Productivity
• Microservices
• AWS Cloud
• Docker/Kubernetes
• Software Architecture
• Mentorship