Lead Software Engineer

Lead Engineer – Effi Technologies

Effi Technologies is a fast-growing startup transforming how finance brokers and lenders engage with customers through AI, automation, and modern SaaS solutions. We operate as a lean, outcome-driven team where ownership, accountability, and speed are critical.

The Lead Engineer plays a central role in shaping our technical strategy and execution, ensuring that we deliver secure, scalable, and innovative solutions. Working closely with the leadership team and founder, you'll be a hands-on technical leader responsible for shaping technical strategy, writing code, and mentoring a team. This role requires balancing a high-speed work environment with driving architectural decisions, ensuring code quality, and mentoring other engineers. This role is crucial for guiding Effi's technical direction and building scalable solutions to align with business goals.

People

• Provide leadership and direction to a small, cross-functional engineering team, creating a culture of agility, ownership, and collaboration.
• Lead by example: hands-on involvement in technical design, coding reviews, and problem-solving.
• Mentor and coach engineers to grow their skills in software development, solution architecture, and DevOps practices.
• Recruit and retain top talent, building a high-performing team that thrives in a startup environment.
• Work with management to prioritise engineering initiatives so the team's efforts align with business goals.
• Collaborate with engineers to improve estimation and task planning, ensuring delivery timelines are realistic and achievable.
• Foster transparent communication with product and leadership, ensuring priorities and trade-offs are clearly understood.
• Guide the team as it grows over the next 12–24 months, ensuring processes, tools, and culture scale effectively.

Technology & Architecture

• Define and own Effi's engineering strategy, aligning with business goals and the product roadmap.
• Balance software and solution architecture—designing systems that are scalable, resilient, and secure while pragmatic for startup delivery speed.
• Stay hands-on with modern technologies: contribute to design discussions, review code, and guide DevOps/CI/CD practices.
• Drive adoption of modern engineering practices, cloud-native architectures, and emerging technologies (e.g. AI/ML integration, vector databases, agent frameworks).
• Ensure platform reliability and support compliance with industry standards, including SOC-2 and financial services regulations (with support from external specialists as required).

Delivery

• Translate business requirements into actionable engineering solutions that deliver measurable value to brokers and customers.
• Champion pragmatic Agile practices (scrum/kanban), focusing on incremental delivery and continuous improvement.
• Promote DevOps principles: continuous integration, automated testing, and frequent releases.
• Identify and manage technical debt, scalability bottlenecks, and performance issues proactively.
• Operate effectively in a lean environment—balancing short-term deliverables with long-term platform vision.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with product, operations, and sales to ensure engineering output aligns with customer and business needs.

Leadership

• Provide hands-on technical leadership, mentor other engineers, and foster a culture of innovation and high-velocity delivery.
• Demonstrated ability to recruit, grow, and retain engineering talent.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to influence both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Technical

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• Hands-on expertise in software development (.NET, Python, React, or similar).
• Strong background in solution architecture—designing scalable, cloud-native systems.
• Deep knowledge of DevOps, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud infrastructure (AWS, Azure, or GCP).
• Experience balancing hands-on coding with high-level technical strategy.
• Exposure to AI/ML technologies is a MUST and their integration into SaaS platforms is a plus.

Other

• Knowledge of the mortgage/financial-services industry is advantageous but not mandatory.
• Comfortable thriving in uncertainty and making rapid, informed decisions.
• Problem-solving mindset with the ability to balance technical depth and pragmatic delivery in a resource-constrained environment.

Why Join Us

At Effi, you won't just be joining another startup — you'll be stepping into a place where your impact is felt immediately and your growth is accelerated. We move fast, scale fast, and reward those who thrive in that pace. High performers don't wait years to lead here; they earn leadership opportunities within months. If you're ambitious, eager to take ownership, and want to shape both a product and a team, Effi gives you the runway to do it. This is your chance to grow with us — and grow faster than you thought possible.