Lead Backend Engineer

About Zego

Insurance hasn't changed much in over a century. The way we live, work and travel has.

Good drivers are the entire point of Zego. Seven in 10 drivers on the road are consistently good, but until telematics came along there was no way to prove it, so nearly everyone paid a price based on averages. Zego is the company built to change that.

At Zego, we're leading the AI evolution in insurance.

We move fast, without the layers that usually slow things down. AI takes the routine work off every team, from Finance to Product to Marketing, so people ship real code and launch custom dashboards in minutes. Engineering commits are entirely AI-assisted, which shifts the focus from team size to the quality of your thinking and our data warehouse connects directly to an AI assistant for instant answers. Backed by a modern tech stack (Claude Code, Snowflake, Figma and Zapier) and a commitment to adopting new tools in days rather than quarters, you get complete ownership to do the most impactful work of your career.

Location: Portugal | Compensation package: €70,000 to €90,000 base + Bonus + Share Options + Benefits | Ways of working: remote with quarterly visits to our London office

What you will be doing

• Lead several engineers within a team or workstream, guiding their work towards user value and business opportunity
• Design, build and own the Python microservices that power our insurance platform: secure, observable and built for scale
• Drive architectural discussions and decisions across multiple teams, shaping the future of our backend systems
• Deliver large, complex technical initiatives end to end, with clarity on scope, sequencing and impact
• Raise the bar on engineering excellence: testability, reliability, scalability and clean code
• Coach and mentor engineers, sharing context, feedback and support so the whole team levels up
• Improve how the team works, from CI/CD pipelines to incident response, investigating root causes and fixing them pragmatically

What you will need to be successful

• Deep backend expertise - Hands-on experience building cloud-native microservices, Python preferred, though strong experience in another language works too!
• Systems at scale - You have built distributed architectures and understand performance tuning and observability, on top of solid fundamentals in data structures, algorithms and system design
• You strive for simplicity - You build systems that are easy to understand, test and maintain, and you weigh trade-offs rather than reaching for complexity
• You lead by example - Through mentoring, clear communication and a collaborative mindset, plus the tenacity to find a way forward through ambiguity or tough technical problems
• You are proactive with people beyond engineering - You raise concerns early, engage the right people, and explain technical decisions to non-technical stakeholders
• You work AI-first - You will use AI daily here, and we mean daily. You do not need to arrive an expert, but you do need to arrive curious, experiment fast, and take ownership of getting good quickly. People who wait to be trained will find this uncomfortable

What’s it like to work at Zego?

At Zego, we operate like a high-performing sports team. We come together as one, driven by ambition, backed by real support and united by a shared mission to win.

Working here means having the backing, the coaching and an inclusive community of Zegons across the UK and Europe, who celebrate your wins and raise your game. It also means holding ourselves to high standards: moving with urgency, taking complete ownership and embracing honest feedback that helps us continuously learn and evolve!

This is your opportunity for a career-defining experience and one you will own.

Do not take our word for it - Read what Zegons say about us on Glassdoor.

The Zego ways of working

Teams work better with time to collaborate and space to get things done. We call it Zego Hybrid: some of us are in our central London office weekly, others monthly or quarterly. It is about finding the balance between face time and focus that produces great work and a healthy life around it.

We also make a point of getting everyone in the same room. Teams come together every quarter and once a year the whole company does, properly. It is a serious investment and consistently one of the best parts of the year - Here is what the last one looked like.

Benefits

• Market-competitive salary, benchmarked against your function and reviewed every year
• Annual performance bonus, linked to company performance and your contribution
• Share options, a real stake in the company and a share in the future you build
• Private medical insurance, for you
• Generous holiday, up to 90 days a year working from anywhere, and €1,000 a year to spend on getting to the office or learning something new
• Cutting-edge systems and tools, so you always have what you need to drive your impact

Pay Transparency

At Zego, we are committed to pay transparency and equal pay practices. In compliance with EU pay transparency regulations, we proactively disclose salary information for all open positions to ensure fairness and clarity in our recruitment process. We believe transparency builds trust and helps candidates make informed decisions about their careers with us.

If you're ready to help build the real-time, data-driven infrastructure for an intelligent world, we want to hear from you.

Zego, leading the AI evolution in insurance.

There's more to Zego than just a job. Check out our blog for insights, stories and more.

We were also named Best Insurance Company 2025.

We're an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, or disability status.