Technical Team Lead, Xcelirate
Contract
€145k
Competitive contractor rate with a generous bonus paid every 6 months based on your time with us
PHP
React
AWS
Docker
JavaScript
Python
Linux
Terraform
Vue.js
Ansible
Symfony
Next
Expert level
London
More information about location
Xcelirate is a global technology innovator.
Be an early applicant
Xcelirate is a global technology innovator.
21-100 employees
B2B
Be an early applicant
€145k
Competitive contractor rate with a generous bonus paid every 6 months based on your time with us
PHP
React
AWS
Docker
JavaScript
Python
Linux
Terraform
Vue.js
Ansible
Symfony
Next
Expert level
London
More information about location
21-100 employees
B2B
Company mission
To create the perfect environment for the sharpest developers to come together to strategically plan and swiftly execute practices, which see them maintain existing market dominance and strive for global expansion.
Role
Who you are
- 15+ years hands-on experience building and maintaining complex web applications
- Have been directly responsible for development and successful (or not so successful) release of multiple major projects from their inception to production and subsequent operation
- In your portfolio there are multiple projects that you have worked on for more than 2.5 years
- Clear technical communication; able to explain and defend design decisions to senior engineers and non-engineers alike
- Expert PHP developer (12+ years); Symfony or equivalent frameworks
- 10+ years modern JavaScript; React or Vue (Next/Nuxt a plus)
- Expert level knowledge in at least one more programming language (Python a plus)
- Full-stack architecture expertise: monoliths, services, and hybrids
- Power user cloud deployment and scaling (AWS preferred) experience and abilities
- Expert Linux user; including daily containerized workflows with Docker
- Expert in infrastructure automation: Terraform, Ansible
- Power user level CI/CD pipeline and release workflow ownership
- Experience in automated testing: unit, integration, E2E; TDD where appropriate
- Expert level knowledge in and around web security fundamentals: auth, authorization, data protection, secure coding
- Legacy + modern codebase fluency; ability to work on incremental modernization
- Strong independent technical ownership and accountability
- We are always looking for the best candidates, so if you think you would be a good fit even if you don't meet 100% of the requirements, we would love to hear from you!
What the job involves
- You're a principal-level engineer first. The tech lead title is almost incidental. It just means you're the person the team orbits around, because that's what happens naturally when you're the one who understands the system most deeply and keeps the clearest head under pressure
- The 10% that's people management fits inside your engineering work, not alongside it. You hire, you steer, you unblock, but you do it the way a strong engineer does everything: with good judgment, minimal ceremony, and no interest in making it a bigger deal than it is
- You are still, genuinely, happiest close to the code and driving projects forward. You are also more than happy to take ownership over driving them forward
- Programming languages don't impress you. You've used enough of them to treat them as what they are: different syntaxes for expressing the same fundamental ideas, some more suited to the problem than others, none worth being religious about. You've written things in languages that no longer exist, maintained systems built on frameworks that peaked at a conference talk in 2013, and learned the hard way that novelty and progress are not the same thing
- When you join a new codebase, you go quiet and start reading. You find the abstractions that are holding up weight, identify the ones that are just decorative, and build a mental model of the whole thing before you touch anything. Then you make one small, careful change, and the way it lands tells you everything you didn't yet know
- You have strong, well-earned instincts around performance. Hot-path optimisation, speculative execution, lazy initialisation: these feel obvious to you, and you've mostly stopped being surprised when they don't feel obvious to others. You know where latency actually hides, and it's rarely where the team thinks it is. You profile before you optimize, but you usually already know what you're going to find
- Your system design isn't flashy. It's load-bearing. You've seen enough over-engineered architectures to have a near-allergic reaction to complexity that isn't earning its keep. When you design something, it's because you've thought about what it needs to do in two years, not just the next sprint
- Once you've got your footing in the project, you'll build the team around it. You know how to hire for this kind of work. You're looking for engineers with genuine curiosity, sound instincts, and the humility to learn a system before trying to improve it. You'll form a team that can own hard problems. Getting that right is important to you, but it's not where you live
- Where you live is in the work itself. In a well-reasoned commit. In a system that behaves exactly as it should at 3am when nobody's watching. In the quiet satisfaction of a codebase that's a little more honest than it was before you touched it
- The homelab is always running something. You'll tell us about it if we ask, and we're asking
- If this reads less like a job description and more like a description of you, good. That's what we were going for
- Manage your own and your team's time while adhering to priorities set by the company
- Own complex engineering problems end-to-end, from problem framing and design through to delivery and iteration
- Take responsibility for critical areas of the platform, ensuring they remain reliable, performant, and maintainable
- Build new features and improve existing ones across our platforms
- Refactor legacy and modern codebases pragmatically, balancing long-term health with delivery needs
- Write tests (unit, integration, and end-to-end) to ensure software reliability
- Be involved in every phase of the software lifecycle, from ideation to deployment
- Participate in (and at times lead) deep technical discussions, helping drive sound decisions and trade-offs
- Work hands-on across backend and frontend systems, stepping in wherever the problem lives
- Identify inefficiencies and help streamline workflows, reducing unnecessary work
- Collaborate closely with other senior engineers, raising the bar through example rather than authority
- Take ownership of your work, ensuring high-quality results and maintainable solutions
Salary benchmarks
Our take
Xcelirate designs and delivers innovative technology products. The company boasts a diverse and experienced team drawn from a range of backgrounds, which has contributed to its rapid growth so far.
The company has scaled its customer base significantly, thanks in part to its focus on forward-facing, innovative and practical products and an energetic strategy. Xcelirate's main challenge will be competing with rival firms within the industry, and it will need to constantly invest in its technology in order to do so.
Freddie
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
Company
Company benefits
- Relocation package
- Delicious daily lunches
- Health Insurance without copayment, and including dental coverage
- Gym membership with access to over 3,000 gyms, studios and classes throughout Spain, including spa access for you and a friend
- Weekly business-English classes and Spanish lessons, with the option for 1-on-1 classes where needed
- In-office chair massages every Thursday by our resident massage therapist
- Annual learning budget, and regular coaching sessions hosted by your peers and industry experts
- Spotify and Netflix subscriptions
- Awesome new MacBook & our branded merchandise, along with all the fixtures which complete the perfect workstation
- Incredible office based in Barcelona’s WeWork - it’s full of games, chill out areas, snacks and beer on tap
- Access to a global network of co-working spaces for when you’re utilizing our remote days
- 23 days of annual leave and all the Barcelona public holidays to use when you please
- Flexible hours
- An international team
- Awesome referral bonus
- Bring your dogs to work
Company HQ
Dreta de l'Eixample, Barcelona, Spain
Leadership
Mina Ghabrial
(Founder & General Manager)Previously Head of People at WPT Global, Global People Operations Manager at Protocol Labs and was a People Operations Manager at Zenmara.
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