Engineering Team Lead (Acquiring)

Location: Brussels, Belgium Why Paynovate Paynovate is a growing Belgian fintech with over 80 employees, developing payment solutions in a fast-moving, regulated environment. We value initiative, ownership and teamwork. Join our Acquiring engineering team and take on technical and leadership challenges at the heart of our payment solutions. Your Role As an Engineering Team Lead (Acquiring), you'll combine hands-on technical leadership with people management and delivery ownership. You'll maintain and modernise our payment systems, lead the team's delivery priorities and coach engineers. You'll join the Engineering leadership team, shaping technical direction alongside fellow team leads and senior technical contributors. You'll work closely with Product, Finance, Compliance and Operations to turn business needs into reliable technical solutions. What You'll Work On Our Acquiring team works on a range of technical and business challenges, including: Payment solutions : Developing e-commerce payment solutions and supporting our Direct Acquiring initiatives Production reliability : Improving system observability, stability and security Platform modernisation : Modernising legacy applications and scheduled processes to improve maintainability without impacting business continuity Data quality and governance : Improving data quality and managing complex databases covering payment transactions, customers and related fees Internal tools : Building and improving reports and applications for other teams to streamline day-to-day operations Fraud and compliance : Integrating with fraud monitoring and post-transaction AML solutions and developing regulatory reporting solutions, such as cross-border tax reporting What You'll Do Software Engineering : Develop and maintain backend applications primarily in PHP (Laravel) Modernise legacy systems while keeping production stable, contributing to architectural redesigns and AWS migrations alongside other Engineering teams Design and improve complex relational databases, including data modelling and migrations Build and maintain APIs, payment integrations and internal tools Support application deployments and troubleshoot production issues Improve code quality, testing, documentation, observability and reliability Team Leadership : Lead delivery planning and execution, balancing team capacity, business priorities, platform reliability and technical debt Help evolve and apply shared SDLC and change-management practices, supporting predictable delivery and service-level commitments (SLAs). Lead one-to-ones, provide regular feedback and conduct annual performance reviews Manage recruitment, onboarding and team development, coaching engineers and strengthening technical practices Ensure clear communication within the team and with Product, Finance, Compliance, Infrastructure, Operations and other stakeholders What You Bring Essential : Strong experience with PHP and its ecosystem (ideally Laravel), including hands-on backend development Solid experience with relational databases (ideally MySQL), including data modelling and migrations Practical experience with AWS, software reliability and production environments Experience leading an engineering team, including direct people management, coaching and delivery ownership Experience designing and evolving backend architectures, with solid knowledge of APIs, performance, troubleshooting, automated testing, data integrity and transactional reliability Strong communication skills and the ability to work across teams Ability and willingness to understand business needs and make practical technical decisions Professional working proficiency in English Nice to Have : Experience with TypeScript is a strong plus, particularly for backend development Experience with Go Knowledge of Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform), Kubernetes or CI/CD Experience in payments, acquiring, fintech or another regulated environment Experience with high-availability production systems French or Dutch language skills How We Work Our engineering culture is built on a balance between autonomy and teamwork, guided by three principles: Autonomy : "I can do it." Take initiative, solve problems and know when to ask for help Ownership : "I make sure it gets done." Take responsibility and follow things through One Team : "We succeed together." Communicate openly, share knowledge and support each other What We Offer A hands-on leadership role with real autonomy and impact on how our payment platform evolves. Technical challenges in payments, including the modernisation of existing systems. A collaborative team and opportunities to develop your skills. Hybrid working and a benefits package including 32 days of holiday, a mobility budget, meal vouchers, health and group insurance, a phone, and a homeworking allowance.