Engineering Team Lead - Fintech / Payments (Early Stage)

About Toptal:

Toptal is the world’s leading premium talent marketplace, trusted by 30,000+ clients, processing over $5B in payments across 140+ countries.

We’re launching Toptal’s next frontier: a borderless finance platform built on stablecoin rails to reinvent how millions of people manage, move, invest, and borrow money. Stablecoins are rapidly evolving into core financial infrastructure, and with regulatory clarity accelerating worldwide, this is the moment to build something foundational.

You’ll join as an Engineering Team Lead at an early stage of the platform, with responsibility for product engineering across backend and client applications. This is a hands-on role: you will write production code, make architectural decisions, and lead engineers across disciplines as the team grows.

Get ready to:

• Write production code while setting technical direction across backend and frontend systems.
• Lead engineers working on APIs, core services, and client-facing applications (including mobile).
• Own end-to-end delivery of critical product capabilities, from data models to user experience.
• Partner closely with product, design, and compliance to deliver secure, scalable systems.
• Grow your leadership scope as the team and platform scale.
  
  

What you’ll do:

Design, build, and operate distributed systems that move billions in payments globally with near-zero downtime.

Write and review high-quality production code across backend and full-stack components.

Provide technical leadership and people management across backend and frontend engineers.

Set architectural direction and engineering standards that scale across services and client applications.

Lead execution: planning, prioritisation, reviews, and delivery across teams.

Embed compliance by design across backend and frontend flows (KYC/AML, fraud detection, auditability).

Lead integrations with stablecoin and fiat rails (wallets, custodians, on/off-ramps).

Ensure systems meet strict SLAs (99.99% uptime) and latency targets (

What we’re looking for:

• 6+ years building distributed, transaction-heavy systems in production.
• Strong backend engineering depth (Typescript/Node.js), comfortable coding daily.
• Experience leading teams across both backend and frontend disciplines.
• Solid understanding of client application constraints (performance, UX, release cycles), including mobile.
• Strong experience with PostgreSQL and Redis at scale.
• Cloud & infrastructure fluency: AWS/GCP, Kubernetes, CI/CD, IaC.
• Experience operating in regulated fintech or payments environments.
• Capability and ambition to grow into broader technical leadership as the organization scales.
  
  

How you work (values we expect):

• Builder-first - you lead by writing and shipping real systems.
• Ownership mindset - you own outcomes across systems and teams.
• Execution-driven - progress and delivery matter more than ceremony.
• Long-term thinker - you design for scale, reliability, and team growth.
• AI-enabled - you use AI tools to increase leverage for yourself and the team.
  
  

Bonus points if you have…

• Led multi-discipline teams spanning backend and client applications.
• Experience shipping fintech or payments products end-to-end.
• Exposure to stablecoins, custody, or crypto infrastructure.
• Acted as a senior technical leader in a fast-growing organization.
  
  

For Toptal Use Only: #europe #easterneurope #northerneurope