---
title: 'Engineering Team Lead (ETL) at Backbase'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/engineering-team-lead-etl-backbase-cardiff-w35jdgkm6agc'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-12'
---

# Engineering Team Lead (ETL) at Backbase

- **Company:** Backbase
- **Location:** Cardiff, United Kingdom
- **Posted:** 2026-09-03
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/workatbackbase/jobs/8041176

## Job description

## The Role

This is a Senior+ Engineer who leads people, not a people manager who used to code. If you cannot open an IDE, spin up an agentic coding session in Cursor or Claude Code, debug a production issue or support a customer implementation alongside our last-mile Services teams, this is not the right role. You are the captain of a single squad: accountable for delivery predictability, engineering quality and the growth of every engineer in your team.

We are looking for technologists who want to stay deep in the technology whilst taking on genuine people leadership and delivery accountability. You will spend roughly half your time on system design, architecture and technical decision-making, with around a fifth of your time in the codebase directly through code reviews, debugging and unblocking. The remaining time is invested in your people: coaching, calibration, hiring and building a team that delivers predictably and sustainably.

## What you will do

Technical Leadership (circa 70% of the role)

- System Design and Architecture: Lead and participate in design reviews, RFCs and architecture decisions alongside Staff Engineers. Ensure security and scalability are embedded from the start.
- Hands-on Contribution: Maintain your technical credibility through active code reviews, debugging production issues and unblocking your team. You write code, read code and understand the systems your squad owns.
- Quality and Engineering Excellence: Champion modern engineering practices including CI/CD pipelines, test automation, observability and quality gates. Drive production-readiness and robust release management.
- BS Detector: Use your technical depth to spot unrealistic estimates, fragile designs or risk blind spots before they become delivery problems.
- Emergency Response: During critical incidents, jump in technically or coordinate the response. You are comfortable leading under pressure.
- AI-Native Engineering: Lead adoption of agentic tooling, LLM workflows and AI automation within your squad to accelerate the development lifecycle. Experiment with code generation, test automation and AI-assisted productivity tools.

People Leadership (circa 10% of the role)

- Talent Development: Own meaningful 1:1s, performance calibration, and evidence-based career development for your squad of 6 to 9 engineers. Create tailored growth plans and act as a genuine coach.
- Team Health: Build and sustain psychological safety, team resilience and a healthy engineering culture. Detect and resolve friction early. Maintain sustainable pace even under delivery pressure.
- Hiring and Succession: Manage hiring decisions and onboarding to build teams with the right technical competencies and seniority balance. Plan for succession and knowledge continuity.
- Conflict Resolution: Mediate interpersonal or cross-team conflicts early to protect team cohesion and delivery momentum.

Delivery and Execution (circa 20% of the role)

- Delivery Mastery: Optimise the squad's idea-to-production cycle time. Strengthen delivery predictability through empirical measurement, process improvement and proactive blocker removal.
- Stakeholder Partnership: Collaborate closely with Product Managers and Domain Architects to translate business needs into technical outcomes. Push back on unrealistic scope with data, not opinion.
- Continuous Improvement: Drive improvement in delivery capability, operating models and tooling. Promote visibility and transparency through effective tracking and communication.

## What you will bring

Technical Depth

- 5+ years of hands-on software engineering experience with recent production code contributions.
- Strong grounding in system design, architecture patterns and modern engineering tooling.
- T-shaped profile: deep expertise in at least one area with broad competence across the full stack.
- Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines, test automation, observability and quality-focused development practices.
- Enthusiasm for AI tooling and a willingness to lead its adoption within your team.

People and Leadership

- An explicit desire to lead people whilst remaining an active technical contributor.
- High emotional intelligence and resilience under pressure.
- Experience coaching engineers, running effective 1:1s and providing constructive feedback.
- Ability to create inclusive, engaging team environments with a strong engineering culture.
- Comfortable addressing underperformance constructively when needed.

Delivery and Communication

- Skilled in Agile delivery methods (Scrum, Kanban) with experience managing delivery risk and stakeholder expectations.
- A strong unblocker who translates and synthesises rather than simply relaying messages.
- Confident communicator who adjusts style for different audiences and fosters open dialogue.
- Track record of building and scaling teams, processes and delivery capability.

## About BackBase

Backbase is the maker of the AI-native Banking OS, the operating system that turns fragmented banking operations into a Unified Frontline. Customers, employees and AI agents work as one across digital channels, front office and operations. Every actor operates from the same truth, every decision carries a full audit trail, and every capability compounds on the same foundation.

We have been building banking software since 2003. Today, 150+ banks run on Backbase, supported by 2,000+ employees globally, 4,000+ certified experts and 16 offices across 5 continents. 50% of our team works in R&D, which means engineering is not a support function here; it is the core of what we do.

Our platform powers Elastic Operations across retail banking, small business banking, commercial banking, private banking and wealth management. We help banks modernise progressively, one domain at a time, with no rip-and-replace and no big-bang migration.

## About Backbase

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Backbase builds the AI-native Banking OS that unifies digital channels, front office, and operations so banks can coordinate customers, employees, and AI agents from one platform.
- **Entity Type**: Private (no public ticker; no funding rounds disclosed – appears organically grown)
- **Headquarters**: Amsterdam, Netherlands
- **Founded**: 2003
- **Founders**: Not publicly available (described as “founder-led” but names not stated on the provided sources)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Banking technology / financial services software
- **Target customers**: B2B – large banking institutions (120+ banks globally, serving 75M+ daily users)
- **Mission/purpose**: “We built something that didn't exist before – an AI-native Banking OS where humans and AI agents work side by side, at scale, inside real banks.”

## Products & Services
- **AI-native Banking OS**: A unified platform that sits above legacy cores, CRMs, and data platforms. It orchestrates customer engagement (digital banking, conversational banking, front-office workspaces) and banking operations (high-volume processes like disputes, payments, lending). Designed to be deployed incrementally without rip-and-replace. Includes native AI agents for governance, automation, and auditability.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: 2,000+ employees globally, 50% of team in R&D, 120+ banks as customers, 75M+ active daily users across the platform
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not publicly available
- **Growth Signals**: Expanding globally with 16 offices across 5 continents; notable customer examples include I&M Bank (Africa) which grew onboarding from 2,000 to 21,000 new customers per month, and Techcombank (Vietnam) achieving 50% of savings and investments through digital. The company is actively hiring and describes itself as “in the middle of the biggest shift in banking’s history.”

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unified Frontline architecture** – breaks down fragmentation between digital channels, front office, and operations, enabling banks to move fast without sacrificing compliance or security
- **AI-native from the ground up** – not a bolt-on; full governance and audit trails for every AI decision
- **Progressive modernization** – works with existing cores, no big-bang migration required
- **18+ years of banking domain expertise** (since 2003) with a singular focus on banking since 2012

## Strategic Focus
- Deepening AI integration into banking workflows (Elastic Operations – scaling throughput without scaling headcount)
- Expanding global footprint (17 offices, including recent additions in Hyderabad, Riyadh, Mexico City, and Toronto)
- Continuing to shift banks from legacy fragmentation to a unified, composable operating system

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Described as “ambition without ego,” “bias for action,” “you own what you ship,” and “the work is the standard.” Flat structure with no micromanagement.
- **Work model**: Hybrid – “Where you do your best work is up to you.” Offices in 17 locations globally.
- **Perks**: Annual learning budget, global exposure, wellness support, real ownership of projects from day one.
- **Engineering focus**: 50% of the team in R&D; real AI running in production, not just pilots.

## Sources
1. [backbase.com/careers](https://www.backbase.com/careers)
2. [backbase.com/about](https://www.backbase.com/about)
3. [backbase.com](https://www.backbase.com/)
4. [linkedin.com/company/backbase](https://www.linkedin.com/company/backbase)

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