Principal Backend Engineer

Skills this role screens for

About the role

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Join us as Principal Backend Engineer in the Foundations domain and help scale the critical systems that power Qonto's 600,000+ customers — before they become bottlenecks. You'll drive company-wide backend initiatives spanning transactions, search, monetization, permissions, and integrations.

• Our mission and customers: We are creating the freedom for SMEs to succeed by delivering Europe's leading finance workspace with banking at its core, augmented by financial tools. We are proud to be rated 4.7 on Trustpilot, https://www.trustpilot.com/review/qonto.com based on 60,000 reviews. Our culture https://qonto.com/en/careers/culture puts customer satisfaction at the core of what we do, as proven by our Net Promoter Score of 75 (more about our culture here https://medium.com/qonto-way/the-qonto-way-our-culture-is-our-strategy-90defd4895f9).
• Our journey: Founded in 2017 by Alexandre https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprot/ and Steve https://www.linkedin.com/in/steveanavi/, Qonto has grown to 1,700 Qontoers serving over 750,000 customers across 8 European countries. We have been profitable since 2023, and we are just getting started.
• Our beliefs: We hire for skills and potential. With 80+ nationalities, 45% women, of which 56% of women in our leadership team, diversity isn't a program; It's who we are. We've built a discrimination-free hiring process https://medium.com/qonto-way/a-recruiters-dilemma-confronting-bias-in-hiring-b78acce148eb because the best teams are built on merit.
• AI at Qonto: AI is deeply embedded in how we work (here https://medium.com/qonto-way/ai-at-qonto-vision-statement-725a7e2f659b) - Every Qontoer gets unlimited access to the best AI tools. We want people who experiment without waiting for permission, push AI beyond the obvious, know when to trust it, and when to question it.

The work

What you'll do

• Anticipate and solve scale challenges before they hit: You'll map technical risks across Foundations' core systems — ~600k daily transactions approaching 1B total, search indexing, billing — and drive the architectural work that keeps Qonto's growth ahead of its infrastructure.
• Lead broad, high-stakes technical initiatives: You'll own end-to-end programs spanning multiple teams, touching Legal, Risk, Compliance, and leadership, with real business consequences.
• Shape the platform's future: You'll identify where Foundations needs to invest next — from granular permissions to AI-native integrations — and translate those bets into technical roadmaps.
• Multiply the engineering org around you: You'll raise the bar for groups of engineers through mentoring, coaching programs, and technical enablement — not just one-on-ones.
• Bridge business goals and backend decisions: You'll connect company and customer needs to concrete technical plans and communicate them clearly to engineers and executives alike.

Who they want

What we're looking for

• Large-scale backend architecture: You've designed and scaled high-volume systems — transactions, search/indexing, billing, or similar — under real growth pressure.
• Company-wide technical leadership: You've driven complex, multi-team initiatives that touched Legal, Risk, Compliance, and leadership, and you can tie every technical decision to a business outcome.
• Autonomous by default: You thrive in ambiguous environments, map ecosystems yourself, surface risks early, and propose initiatives without waiting for direction.
• Multiplier, not just contributor: You've raised the bar for groups of engineers through mentoring programs, documentation, or structured technical enablement.
• AI in your workflow: You use AI tools to accelerate how you architect, prototype, and communicate — and you're excited about what AI-native integrations could unlock for a platform like ours.

Also

What we can offer you

• Scale Qonto's next chapter: Usage and data volumes ar