NOTE: For this position, we are seeking a fully remote candidate in the EU.What We DoTalentDesk empowers organisations to manage and scale their global freelance and contractor workforce—seamlessly, compliantly, and at speed. We bring together onboarding, compliance, project oversight, and payments into one intelligent platform, eliminating operational friction and unlocking the true value of external talent.Why We Exist (Our Purpose)At TalentDesk, our purpose is to unlock the boundless potential of talent by reimagining how work gets done. We exist to empower organisations with adaptive systems that go beyond the obvious—responding not only to what clients say, but also to what they need before they articulate it. In a world where the pace of change is relentless, we build tools that evolve with our customers, fueling innovation, enabling agility, and driving growth. Our mission is to shape the future of work by creating smarter models that bring out the brilliance in people and teams, wherever they are.A People-First ApproachAt TalentDesk, we don’t just build for people—we build with them. Our culture is rooted in empathy, curiosity, and collaboration. We believe that when diverse minds come together around a shared mission, innovation flows naturally. That’s why we’ve designed our workplace to be flexible, inclusive, and growth-oriented—where ownership is encouraged, ideas are valued, and everyone has a voice.Whether you're engineering the future of work, supporting customers on the front line, or designing systems that scale globally, you'll be empowered to make meaningful decisions, take smart risks, and grow alongside some of the most talented people you'll ever meet.We don’t just talk about work-life balance—we live it because we know that thriving teams build thriving products.Your RoleAs an Engineering Lead at TalentDesk, you’ll play a pivotal role in shaping both our technology and our team. You’ll guide a group of talented engineers, setting direction, mentoring with intention, and helping each person grow in their craft and career.You’ll collaborate closely with product managers and stakeholders to shape our roadmap, break big ideas into meaningful milestones, and ship features that truly matter. You'll be hands-on with architecture and process, refining how we build, scale, and ship across our platform.We’re looking for someone excited to:Lead with clarity and empathy, setting goals that inspire and challenge.Support engineers with thoughtful feedback, clear development plans, and ongoing learning.Partner with Product to prioritise work that delivers real impact—quickly and iteratively.Refine and scale our processes to improve quality, reliability, and velocity.Balance product innovation with technical health—tackling debt and strengthening systems.Help grow our team by hiring great people and helping them thrive.Foster a culture of craftsmanship, knowledge-sharing, and continuous improvement.You won’t just be managing a team—you’ll be helping shape the future of how we work, build, and grow.Who You AreWe're looking for a communicative, collaborative, thoughtful and delivery-oriented engineering leader to help shape the future of our payments infrastructure. You’ll bring technical depth, leadership experience, and a product mindset to help us build secure, scalable systems that power freelance payments around the world.Minimum Qualifications:We recognise that great candidates come from all backgrounds. These are the key capabilities we’re looking for:8+ years of hands-on software engineering experience, with at least 3 years working on financial, payments, or transaction-heavy systems.1+ years of engineering leadership experience, ideally including line management or technical leadership of a small team.Strong computer science fundamentals and a deep understanding of system design and trade-offs.Proficiency with Node.js and experience working in modern, service-oriented backends.Solid experience with relational databases (RDBMS) and strong SQL fundamentals.Familiarity with event-driven architectures, asynchronous workflows, and messaging systems.Comfortable with modern development practices: TDD, CI/CD pipelines, trunk-based development.A natural collaborator with clear communication and excellent organisational skills.Motivated by delivery, you care about getting high-quality software into users’ hands.Comfortable working in a distributed, remote-first environment, managing your own time and priorities effectively.Preferred Qualifications:While not required, experience in the following areas will help you hit the ground running: Payments & Systems ExpertiseExperience working with global payment systems, cross-border transactions, or financial compliance domains.Familiarity with workload automation and asynchronous processing using job queues (e.g., BullMQ, RabbitMQ).Exposure to HTTP API integrations for third-party services (e.g., payment gateways, KYC providers).Experience with SQL performance tuning and database optimisation techniques for high-throughput environments.⚙️ Infrastructure & DeploymentProficiency with container-based deployments (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes).Experience working with public cloud platforms, especially AWS.