Java Tech Lead

About the project

Our client is a fintech company building a new digital banking and payments product from scratch. The platform will cover card and payment processing, integrations with banks and payment providers, and core financial services for end customers.

The product is at an early stage: architecture, team and roadmap are being shaped now, and the scope will be refined together with the team. You will join a mixed team of client and NerdySoft engineers and work closely with the client's technical leadership. AI-assisted development is part of everyday engineering.

What you will do

• Lead and mentor a team of 3–6 engineers while staying hands-on: at least half of your time is production code
• Shape the architecture of a new event-driven backend and own technical decisions in your area
• Own code quality: code reviews, testing standards, secure coding practices
• Build reliable integrations with banking and payment providers — idempotent, traceable and easy to reconcile
• Make sure the solution meets security and regulatory requirements, including PCI DSS
• Create and onboard AI powered SDLC process and help the team adopt them with clear rules for review and testing
• Deliver features end to end, from technical design to production support
• Break down scope, estimate and plan delivery together with Product Manager
• Be the main technical point of contact for client stakeholders

What you bring

• 7+ years of commercial backend development with Java (17+) and Spring Boot
• 2+ years as a Tech Lead or Team Lead of 3+ engineers, while still writing code
• FinTech background is mandatory: commercial experience on banking, payments or lending products
• Production experience with asynchronous, event-driven systems (Kafka, RabbitMQ, AWS SNS/SQS or similar)
• Solid knowledge of concurrency and transactions: ACID, isolation levels, optimistic and pessimistic locking
• Strong relational database skills (PostgreSQL preferred), JPA / Hibernate
• Experience integrating external APIs and providers: retries, timeouts, idempotency, consistent error handling across layers
• Designing secure public APIs for external integrations: authentication, authorization, platform boundaries
• Architecture know-how: DDD, Clean or Hexagonal architecture; you can design a system from scratch and defend the decisions
• Hands-on AWS (or another major cloud), Docker and CI/CD, including API versioning and database migrations
• Strong testing culture: unit, integration and contract tests (JUnit, Mockito, Testcontainers)
• Daily use of AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, GitHub Copilot or similar): you can show how they speed you up and how you check their output
• English B2+ (Upper-Intermediate or higher): you will lead technical discussions with the client

Nice to have

• Card issuing or processing: ISO 8583, authorisation, clearing and settlement, reversals, chargebacks
• Visa or Mastercard integrations and scheme certification
• PCI DSS in practice; HSM, key management, tokenisation for digital wallets
• Ledger systems and double-entry accounting
• Bank transfer and direct debit integrations (SEPA or other domestic payment rails)
• Kotlin, Kubernetes, Terraform; schema evolution with Avro or Protobuf
• Work in a regulated financial environment
• Threat modelling

What we offer

• Comfortable workplace and modern office facilities
• Flexible working hours with no overtime and the ability to work remotely
• 50% compensation for certifications, conferences, training
• 50% compensation for English courses
• 18 working days of paid annual leave
• Paid sick leave
• Medical insurance and sports compensation