Tech Lead, Cloud Engineer - Software, Backend Developer

About Whitespace

Whitespace leads in creating intelligent interfaces for enterprises, empowering them to harness the full potential of AI and human collaboration.

Belfast, UK

• Hybrid
• Full-time

We are seeking a tech lead to join our growing backend team in building scalable, AI‑powered platforms and services. You will work alongside engineers to design and deliver APIs, microservices, and backend systems that power our products and AI/agent integrations. This is a great opportunity for an experienced team lead who is looking to lead a team delivering at pace.

Backend Development Drive the design, development, and maintenance of robust, scalable, and highly‑available backend services and APIs. Set and enforce the gold standard for code quality and engineering excellence, ensuring all delivered code is clean, well‑tested (unit and integration), and thoroughly documented. Contribute to the development of microservices that support multiple products, platforms, and AI/agent‑powered interfaces.

Cloud Infrastructure Work with Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Kubernetes (GKE) to deploy and manage services. Contribute to CI/CD pipelines and follow container orchestration best practices. Use observability tooling (logging, metrics, tracing) to monitor and troubleshoot services.

Collaboration Drive cross‑functional collaboration with product management, designers, and development teams to define, plan and deliver end‑to‑end product features. Lead and actively contribute to technical discussions, architecture reviews, and code reviews, ensuring technical alignment and the highest standards of code quality and system design across the team’s output.

Management Experience Lead, mentor and motivate a team of backend engineers, fostering a collaborative and high‑performing environment. Conduct regular one‑on‑one meetings, performance reviews and career development discussions. Drive technical best practices within the team, ensuring high standards of code quality, testing and system design are consistently met. Work closely with product managers and other stakeholders to align technical strategy with business objectives and ensure timely delivery of features.

Reliability & Quality Beyond writing comprehensive unit and integration tests, support the implementation of advanced testing practices (e.g. end‑to‑end, load, chaos engineering) and enforce a culture of ownership over code quality and stability within the team. Proactively establish and audit adherence to established security and reliability patterns, identifying systemic issues and championing large‑scale improvements.

• Backend Development:
  Extensive experience with Node.js and JavaScript/Type Script; a strong understanding of async patterns and RESTful API design.
• Cloud Exposure:
  Extensive hands‑on experience with cloud platforms (GCP preferred) and containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes).
• Databases:
  
  Experience with relational (Postgre
  
  SQL) and/or No
  
  SQL (Mongo
  
  DB, Redis, Firestore) databases.
• Version Control:
  Strong experience with Git‑based workflows and collaborative development practices.
• Agile Methodologies:
  Experience working within an Agile development process.

• Experience with Python for scripting or data processing tasks.
• Familiarity with React or frontend technologies to enable smoother collaboration with frontend teams.
• Exposure to message queues or event‑driven systems (Pub/Sub, Kafka, Rabbit
  
  MQ).
• Experience with AI/ML‑powered services and agent frameworks.
• Familiarity with infrastructure‑as‑code tools (Terraform, Pulumi).

Work on impactful, cutting‑edge products powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Be part of an agile, close‑knit team that values creativity, quality and continuous learning.

A flexible working environment, with typically 2 days of hybrid working in our Belfast office, and one of the best work‑life balances you’ll find.

A (Mon to Thurs) 4‑day work week during the holidays — July, August and December.

The last Friday of every month off.

Early finish every working Friday at 3pm.

25 days of annual leave, plus all NI bank holidays.

EMI Share options in a rapidly growing scale‑up.

Has strong leadership skills and proven ability to lead and support a team in delivering high quality code. Can drive strong collaboration to achieve a shared goal. Employs strong analytical and problem‑solving skills to deliver solutions tailored to client needs. Stays up‑to‑date with the latest backend development trends, cloud‑native standards and best practices.