Backend Team Lead

Sonata One is a rapidly scaling, regulated fund services and technology (fintech) business.  We're The Private Funds Clearinghouse, connecting more than 53,000 investors with 6,500 funds and 180 fund managers around the globe. Our vision is to change the paradigm of private markets investing through harmonising the end-to-end investment process within one platform. Investors benefit from a seamless, one & done experience across the fund lifecycle (from fund selection and subscription through to settlement and reporting) underpinned by a globally compliant KYC passport and 24/7 support. Fund managers can raise capital faster at a lower cost from a wider pool of pre-approved investors.  Founded in 2015, Sonata One has a presence in eight locations worldwide including the US, UK and Luxembourg, Guernsey, South Africa and Mauritius.    

We operate as #OneGlobalThread in line with our values: We challenge the norm, we change the way we think and work, by connecting systems and people, while committing to our vision and each other. We are now looking to recruit an experienced Team Lead – Backend Developer to join our global team. 

Position Overview:   

 As the Backend Technical Lead, you will be responsible for shaping the architecture and technical direction of our backend systems. This role combines deep hands-on engineering expertise with technical leadership, ensuring our platform is scalable, resilient, and built to the highest engineering standards. 

You will lead the design and evolution of our backend architecture, champion modern engineering practices such as Test-Driven Development (TDD), and guide the development team in building robust services using .NET Core and cloud technologies.  
 
Working closely with Product, DevOps, and Frontend teams, you will play a key role in building reliable, high-performing systems that power our products and services. 

Responsibilities 

• Provide technical leadership for backend engineering, establishing best practices and development standards. 

• Lead the architecture and design of scalable backend services and APIs. 

• Own the technical roadmap for backend systems, ensuring alignment with product and business objectives. 

• Design and build high-performance distributed systems using .NET Core and C#. 

• Ensure systems are secure, resilient, and highly available. 

• Drive adoption of Test-Driven Development (TDD) and other quality engineering practices. 

• Collaborate with frontend engineers, DevOps, product owners, and stakeholders to deliver integrated solutions. 

• Take ownership of designing and implementing new systems from the ground up where required. 

• Proactively manage and reduce technical debt, improving maintainability and performance of existing systems. 

• Conduct architecture reviews, code reviews, and technical design sessions. 

• Mentor and support backend engineers, helping them grow technically and align with architectural standards. 

• Contribute to Agile development processes, including sprint planning, estimation, and retrospectives. 

Qualifications 

• Extensive hands-on experience developing backend systems using .NET Core and C#. 

• Strong experience designing and building RESTful APIs and distributed systems. 

• Hands-on experience with cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP). 

• Deep understanding of HTTP, APIs, and service-oriented architecture. 

• Experience working with both SQL and NoSQL databases, understanding when to use each. 

• Proven experience designing, building, and deploying systems from inception to production. 

• Strong experience working with both legacy systems and greenfield development. 

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate complex technical concepts across engineering and business stakeholders. 

• Demonstrated technical leadership, mentoring engineers and influencing architectural decisions. 

Desirable 

• Experience with modern CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment workflows. 

• Strong experience implementing Test-Driven Development (TDD). 

• Experience working with caching strategies and frameworks (e.g. Redis). 

• Knowledge of structured logging and observability practices. 

• Experience implementing event-driven architectures or messaging systems (e.g. Kafka, RabbitMQ, Azure Service Bus). 

• Understanding of microservices architecture and containerised environments (Docker, Kubernetes).