Senior Backend Engineer

First Circle is a fast-growing, profitable, credit-led SME neobank in the Philippines, backed by shareholders including the World Bank Group (IFC). Thousands of SMEs use our Business Credit Line and Business Bank Accounts to run and grow their businesses. Our product velocity continues to accelerate, with upcoming launches including SME Corporate Cards, Payroll, Invoices, and Solar Financing - redefining the SME neobank category through software, financial products, and exceptional risk models.

We are now hiring senior developers to drive meaningful impact during our most ambitious year of growth to date.

Building in developing markets like the Philippines presents unique challenges, given the state of digital infrastructure. We are building virtually everything in-house, which is not easy, but its a lot of fun. We have a track record of solving seemingly impossible problems that defeated many other start-ups, and the opportunity ahead remains enormous.

• 5+ years of experience building and operating production backend systems in Kotlin, Java, or Ruby.
• Strong foundations in API design, relational databases, and data modeling, with a clear sense of how to keep data consistent as systems scale.
• Experience in a startup environment, fintech, payroll, payments, or banking is a strong plus (especially if you’ve shipped products in regulated environments).
• Hands-on experience running services in production: debugging effectively, investigating incidents, and making systems more resilient afterwards.
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where priorities can evolve.
• Curiosity about AI and practical experience using it, whether you're building LLM-powered features or using AI tools to work more effectively day to day.

What you'll do

• Build and evolve backend services and APIs that are fast, reliable, and easy to change.
• Take features from first idea to production: shape the approach with product and design, ship it, measure what happens, and improve it.
• Help make architectural decisions, write clear technical proposals, and balance speed with solutions that will hold up over time.
• Keep your services running smoothly by setting up clear ways to spot issues early, respond quickly, and support users when something goes wrong.
• Review code, share what you know, and help other engineers grow.
• Work across product, design, and business to turn real needs into practical technical solutions—and explain the trade-offs clearly.

• No fixed budget, we hire globally and adjust offers based on experience and market rate.
• Primarily remote, with the option to work from our office. We have offices in London, Hong Kong, Singapore & Belgrade where other senior engineers are based.
• Macbooks, private health insurance, training budgets and more!
• Opportunity to travel to South East Asia.

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