Backend Team Lead

Smart Host GmbH

Berlin, Germany

about 2 months ago

Role details

Contract type

Permanent contract

Employment type

Full-time (> 32 hours)

Experience level

Expert

Experience required

2 years minimum

Working hours

Regular working hours

Languages

English, German

Job source

indeed.com

Tech stack

Clean Code Principles Java (Programming Language) Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) Artificial Intelligence Business Logic Cloud Engineering Software Quality Code Review Cursor (Graphical User Interface Elements) Programming Tools Distributed Systems Gradle

+7 more

Message Oriented Middleware Systems Integration Spring-boot Technical Debt Backend Kubernetes Terraform

Job description

Technical Leadership: Lead and mentor a team of backend engineers, supporting a culture of ownership, transparency, and continuous learning.
Architectural Ownership: Own the backend services, APIs, integrations, and business logic behind our core hospitality platform, ensuring the system is built for scale and resilience.
Manage Complexity: Identify and reduce technical debt, improve existing systems, and rethink architecture when necessary.
AI-Augmented Engineering Culture: Champion the team’s use of modern AI development tools, helping engineers integrate them into their daily workflow while maintaining high standards for code quality and architectural integrity.

Requirements

Relevant Leadership Experience: You have 7+ years of professional backend engineering experience, including 2+ years leading engineers through mentoring, code reviews, knowledge sharing, and team development.
Strong Java Background: You are highly proficient in Java and have deep experience with the Spring Boot ecosystem.
Cloud Native: You have experience with Kubernetes and modern backend tooling, including Helm, Terraform, and Gradle.
Systems Thinker: You understand the fundamentals of networking, distributed computing, and asynchronous messaging.
Ownership Mindset: You take responsibility beyond your immediate task and dig deep into the stack to find and fix the source of a problem.
Pragmatic Engineer: You care about clean code and refactoring but understand the balance between perfection and time-to-market in a startup.
AI-Forward Mindset: You’re hands-on with AI coding tools (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot, agentic workflows) and have opinions on using them well. You see them as a force multiplier for senior engineers, not a gimmick, and you have a point of view on what they’re good at and where they still fall short.
Fluency in English: You communicate fluently in English, both verbally and in writing. German skills are an advantage.
Entitlement to work in Germany: You are legally entitled to work in Germany and do not require visa sponsorship. For legal hiring reasons, we can only consider candidates based in Germany for this role.

Benefits & conditions

Real impact: You will have direct influence on technical decisions, architecture, and the growth of our backend team.
Hybrid or remote within Germany: Work hybrid from our Berlin office or remotely from within Germany. We occasionally bring the team together in Berlin for workshops, planning, and collaboration.
Team culture: Join a diverse, multicultural team with an open office culture and a few four-legged colleagues.
Smart Host Days - Team Travel: Once a year, we take the whole team on a trip abroad. The trip combines team bonding, training, and the chance to live our mission: making vacation smart.