Lead_Backend_Engineer_JD
Lead Backend Engineer
Location: London | Full-time
About LightWork AI LightWork AI is building the operating system for modern property management. Our platform, Felicity, is an intelligent AI assistant that automates the operational workload that slows down property managers, letting agents and build-to-rent teams. Felicity manages communications, compliance, maintenance coordination and scheduling — enabling property businesses to operate with the efficiency of modern digital platforms. The UK property management services industry is undergoing a structural shift toward automation. Property teams currently spend up to 75% of their time on repetitive operational admin, and our AI is designed to automate up to 80–90% of these workflows. We are already live with pilot customers, with overwhelmingly positive feedback and strong demand for the product as we scale toward revenue in 2026. LightWork AI is backed by experienced founders, industry advisors, and investors, and we are building toward a clear goal: to create the defining AI platform for property operations and build a unicorn company in the process. This is a rare opportunity to join early and help shape the technical backbone of a fast-scaling AI company.
The Role We are looking for a Lead Backend Engineer to own and lead the development of the backend systems that power LightWork AI's platform. This is a senior, hands-on engineering leadership role. You will design and build the scalable APIs, services, and integrations that underpin Felicity — our AI-powered property management assistant — while setting the technical direction and standards for the backend engineering team. You will work closely with our AI engineers, data engineers, and product teams to translate complex property workflows into reliable, production-grade systems. As a lead, you will also mentor other engineers and contribute meaningfully to architecture decisions across the stack. This role is ideal for a technically strong engineer who is equally comfortable writing great code and driving engineering culture in a fast-moving startup environment.
Key Responsibilities
Backend Architecture & Engineering • Architect, design, and build scalable backend systems and APIs using Node.js and
TypeScript. • Design and maintain microservice and event-driven architectures that support
Felicity's real-time operational workflows. • Build and maintain RESTful APIs used by internal systems and customer-facing
applications. • Develop and maintain data pipelines and background job systems that process
operational events across property workflows. • Integrate backend services with AI models, LLMs, and automation workflows. • Ensure systems are secure, performant, reliable, and maintainable at scale.
Engineering Leadership • Contribute to technical strategy and architecture decisions across the engineering
team. • Mentor and support backend engineers, fostering a high-performing team culture. • Lead and participate in code reviews, setting high standards for code quality and
testing. • Collaborate with Product, AI, and Data teams to translate business requirements into
well-scoped technical solutions. • Help define and improve development practices, tooling, and engineering workflows.
Reliability & Observability • Deploy, monitor, and maintain production services with a strong focus on uptime and
performance. • Implement logging, observability, and alerting frameworks to ensure system health. • Debug and resolve complex issues across backend systems and third-party
integrations. • Own incident response and post-mortems for backend-related issues.
Requirements
Core Experience • 7+ years of professional backend or full-stack software engineering experience. • Deep expertise in Node.js with TypeScript. • Strong experience designing and building RESTful APIs and backend service
architectures. • Proven experience leading engineering projects or teams, including mentoring more
junior engineers. • Experience building and operating systems in microservice or event-driven
architectures. • Strong understanding of data modelling, storage, and relational databases
(PostgreSQL preferred). • Experience with Git, CI/CD workflows, and modern software development practices. • Comfortable debugging production systems and working with logs and monitoring
tooling.
• Strong problem-solving and system design skills, with the ability to navigate ambiguity in an early-stage environment.
Nice to Have • Production experience building APIs with Python (FastAPI, Flask, or Django). • Experience integrating with AI or LLM-based systems. • Familiarity with stream processing, message queues (e.g. Kafka, RabbitMQ), or
event-driven architectures. • Experience with cloud infrastructure (GCP, AWS, or Azure) and containerised
services (Docker, Kubernetes). • Experience working with vector databases or ML data pipelines. • Familiarity with NestJS or similar backend frameworks. • Previous experience in high-growth startups or early-stage companies.
What We’re Looking For • A senior engineer with genuine ownership mentality — someone who builds things
that last and cares about the craft. • Comfortable leading from the front: making decisions, setting direction, and holding
the bar on quality. • A collaborative team player who works well across functions including product, AI,
and data. • Strong communicator who can translate technical complexity for non-technical
stakeholders. • Excited by the opportunity to build in a fast-moving startup solving a large, real-world
problem.
Why Join LightWork AI • Lead backend engineering at a category-defining AI company from an early stage. • Work directly with the founders and core engineering team with genuine ownership
and influence. • Competitive salary + equity — share in the upside of what we build together. • Shape engineering culture, architecture, and tooling from the ground up. • Build technology that automates and transforms the UK property management
industry.
- About LightWork AI
- The Role
- Key Responsibilities
- Backend Architecture & Engineering
- Engineering Leadership
- Reliability & Observability
- Requirements
- Core Experience
- Nice to Have
- What We’re Looking For
- Why Join LightWork AI