Engineering Team Lead (Acquiring)

Why Paynovate?

Paynovate is a growing Belgian fintech with over 80 employees, developing payment solutions in a fast-moving, regulated environment. We value initiative, ownership and teamwork.

Join our Acquiring engineering team and take on technical and leadership challenges at the heart of our payment solutions.

Your Role

As an Engineering Team Lead (Acquiring), you'll combine hands-on software development with people management and delivery ownership.

You'll maintain and modernise our payment systems, manage the team's priorities and support developers in their growth.

You'll work closely with Product, Finance, Compliance and Operations to turn business needs into reliable technical solutions.

What You'll Work On

Our Acquiring team works on a range of technical and business challenges, including:

• Payment solutions: Developing e-commerce payment solutions and supporting our Direct Acquiring initiatives
• Production reliability: Improving system observability, stability and security while reducing technical debt
• Platform modernisation: Modernising legacy applications and scheduled jobs to improve maintainability
• Data quality and governance: Improving data quality and managing complex databases covering payment transactions, customers and related fees
• Internal tools: Building and improving reports and applications for other teams
• Fraud and compliance: Integrating with fraud monitoring platforms such as SEON and developing regulatory reporting solutions, including cross-border tax reporting

What You'll Do

Software Engineering:

• Develop and maintain backend applications in PHP, primarily using Laravel
• Modernise legacy systems while keeping production stable
• Design and improve complex relational databases, including data modelling and migrations
• Build and maintain APIs, payment integrations and internal tools
• Handle application deployments and troubleshoot issues in AWS environments
• Improve code quality, testing, documentation, observability and reliability

Team Leadership:

• Manage team capacity, workloads, absences, sprint planning and delivery
• Lead one-to-ones, provide regular feedback and conduct annual performance reviews
• Manage recruitment, onboarding and team development
• Ensure clear communication within the team and with Product, Finance, Compliance, Infrastructure, Operations and other stakeholders

What You Bring

Essential:

• Strong experience with PHP and its ecosystem (ideally Laravel), including hands-on backend development
• Solid experience with relational databases (ideally MySQL), including data modelling and migrations
• Practical experience with AWS, software reliability and production environments
• Experience leading an engineering team, including people management and delivery ownership
• Good understanding of backend architecture, APIs, performance, troubleshooting and automated testing
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work across teams
• Ability and willingness to understand business needs and make practical technical decisions
• Professional working proficiency in English

Nice to Have:

• Experience with TypeScript is a strong plus, particularly for backend development
• Experience with Go
• Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform), Kubernetes or CI/CD
• Experience in payments, acquiring, fintech or another regulated environment
• Experience with high-availability production systems
• French or Dutch language skills

How We Work

Our engineering culture is built on a balance between autonomy and teamwork, guided by three principles:

• Autonomy: "I can do it." Take initiative, solve problems and know when to ask for help
• Ownership: "I make sure it gets done." Take responsibility and follow things through
• One Team: "We succeed together." Communicate openly, share knowledge and support each other

What We Offer

• A hands-on leadership role with real autonomy and impact.
• Technical challenges in payments, including the modernisation of existing systems.
• A collaborative team and opportunities to develop your skills.
• Hybrid working and a benefits package including 32 days of holiday, a mobility budget, meal vouchers, health and group insurance, a phone, and a homeworking allowance.