Senior Backend Engineer - Accounting Integrations

Messy spend management is tricky business. And tedious processes are a lose-lose situation for all involved, not just finance. At Pleo, we're changing that. We build spend solutions that make managing money seamless, empowering, and surprisingly effective for finance teams and employees alike—with a vision to help all businesses ‘go beyond’.

The word ‘Pleo’ actually means ‘more than you’d expect’, and living by that mantra has been the secret to our success over the last 10 years.

Now, we’re at a pivotal moment in our journey; every move we make has a direct impact on our 40,000+ customers, our business, and our collective success. We need people who take pride in uncovering customer needs, who turn complex problems into simple solutions, challenge the way things are done (respectfully), and always aim high. With great ambitions driving us forward, we can’t say we’ve got this whole thing figured out. And frankly, that’s half the fun! What we can say is that we’re a driven, progressive, and, importantly, a kind bunch of 850+ people from over 100 nationalities, all committed to delivering the future of business spending, together.

About the role

We're looking for a Senior Backend Engineer (with Tech Lead responsibilities) to join our Accounting Integrations team at Pleo. This team sits at the boundary between Pleo and external partners, with two simultaneous “modes” of work: Own and evolve key integrations, and build scalable integration foundations. In this role, you'll help define the technical direction and quality standards for the team, as well as help the team transition from “shipping integrations” to “building an integrations system”. If you're passionate about solving complex technical challenges and want to work in a culture that values transparency, collaboration, and a deep commitment to innovation then this role is for you.

What you’ll be doing

As a Senior Backend Engineer, you will:

• Drive technical direction across integration platform + delivery work, with clear trade-offs and pragmatic sequencing.
• Define and raise engineering quality standards for integrations (testing expectations, reliability/monitoring, security, logging), including for work done by external developers/partners.
• Lead initiatives that enable scale, like reusable patterns/tooling (e.g., IDK) and frameworks that reduce one-off implementation work. You will be doing that primarily using Kotlin.
• Improve ways of working: planning, prioritisation, and protecting the team from constant mid-week churn.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to develop innovative solutions across Platform, Services, SMB, and other domains.
• Participate in code reviews, post-mortems, and provide mentorship to other engineers.
• Proactively address technical debt and guide the team through technical challenges and migrations.

What you bring

You'll thrive in this role if you have:

• Expertise in building integrations or working on accounting systems (is an advantage, but not necessary)
• Senior-level systems thinking, able to operate “outside the team” and influence stakeholders.
• Expertise in server-side languages, especially Kotlin, and experience with distributed systems, microservices, and cloud environments (e.g., AWS, Kubernetes).
• Proficiency with relational databases like PostgreSQL, testing frameworks (e.g., JUnit, Testcontainers), and observability tools like Grafana.
• Strong problem-solving skills and a collaborative mindset to mentor and upskill your teammates.
• A proven ability to lead large projects, manage ambiguity, and maintain high standards for code quality and reliability.
• A passion for innovation and driving impactful solutions within a fast-paced scale-up environment.

Who you’ll be working with and reporting to

You will report to the team’s Engineering Manager for Accounting Integrations, and work day to day with the Accounting Integrations engineers and senior ICs. You would partner closely with Integration Product Managers to shape discovery, prioritisation, and delivery plans. A big part of the role also involves cross-team collaboration with teams like Ecosystem and Accounting Experience due to shared dependencies, as well as working with external partners and developers to ensure integration standards and quality are consistent and scalable.

How you’ll develop in this role

In your first six months at Pleo, you’ll:

• Grow your expertise in Kotlin and distributed systems while mentoring other engineers
• Influence the team’s work to become more repeatable and less bespoke through standards and reusable building blocks.
• Enable external developers/partners to build against Pleo APIs with fewer surprises because contracts, docs, and platform behaviour are predictable.
• Support the team to have clearer ownership boundaries and a more intentional roadmap, reducing ad-hoc interruptions.

Salary Range

The annual salary for this position varies based on your location:

• United Kingdom: £80,000 - £85,000
• Spain/Portugal: €87,000 - €93,000

We’re happy to share more about our approach to pay and this range during your first call with us!

Show me the benefits!

• Your own Pleo card (no more out-of-pocket spending!)
• Lunch is on us for your work days - enjoy catered meals or receive a lunch allowance based on your local office 🍜
• Comprehensive private healthcare - depending on your location, coverage options include Vitality, Alan or Médis
• We offer 25 days of holiday + your public holidays
• For our Team, we offer both hybrid and fully remote working options
• Option to purchase 5 additional days of holiday through a salary sacrifice
• We use MyndUp to give our employees access to free mental health and well-being support with great success so far ❤️‍🩹
• Paid parental leave - we want to make sure that we're supportive of families and help you feel that you don't have to compromise your family due to work 👶