Tech lead I Java

At HeadFirst Group, we are transforming the flexible labour market. With our platform Striive, we connect 180,000 independent professionals, suppliers, and clients. From onboarding and matching to contracts, time recording, and invoicing-everything runs on Striive.

Your challenge

As we prepare for international expansion into markets such as the UK and US, we face complex challenges around scalability, compliance, and multi-region infrastructure. We're building a global platform that functions seamlessly across countries, languages, and legislations-and we need a technical leader who's also a hands-on developer to drive this vision forward.

What you will do

• Be part of the technical direction of the platform, shaping the roadmap and ensuring best practices.
• Actively write code and provide technical mentorship within the team-approx. 70% hands-on development.
• Collaborate closely with product managers, designers, and analysts to translate business needs into scalable technical solutions.
• Take ownership of architecture decisions, performance optimizations, and quality standards.
• Manage, mentor, and facilitate a growing team of engineers-conduct code reviews, support professional development, and foster a collaborative team environment.
• Drive recruitment efforts, onboarding, and team-building initiatives.
• Develop automation and integrations to streamline onboarding and operations worldwide.
• Work with AWS, Docker, event-driven architectures (RabbitMQ), and other cloud-native tools to ensure a secure, compliant, and reliable platform.
• Promote TDD across your team members to encourage testing as part of their day to day operations.

Do you have experience in Team management?, Do you have a Master's degree?, * Have a strong passion for both high-quality, maintainable code and effective team leadership.

• Possess at least 10 years of experience in development, combined with experience managing or leading technical teams.
• Are comfortable actively coding while guiding others-your technical expertise shapes the team's success.
• Have a solid understanding of backend (Java 21, Spring Boot, Hibernate) and frontend (Angular 17+, component libraries like Tailwind, Prime, Radix).
• Experience with RESTful APIs, integration, AWS, Docker, and event-driven architectures.
• You're a proactive communicator, eager to build and grow high-performing teams.
• Bonus if you have experience with XP, Elasticsearch, or similar technologies