Lead Backend Engineer (Routing Squad)

About HIVED 📦

At HIVED, we’re steamrolling forward as one of Europe’s fastest growing startups, and our momentum shows no signs of slowing.

Based in London, we are a climate and logistics start-up building the first sustainable parcel delivery network at scale, powered by a 100% electric fleet. In an ever-growing industry where unreliable service has long been the norm, HIVED has been built from the ground-up to meet the demands of modern consumers and disrupt parcel delivery.

A tech company at heart, our talent and technology is laser-focused on delivering the best possible delivery experience for end-customers and meeting the needs of our retail partners. From our drivers to our data engineers, we are constantly working to improve this customer experience that makes us deliver better.

Already trusted by leading international brands such as John Lewis, Nespresso, Uniqlo, H&M brands and more, we are solidifying our position as the leaders in Europe to tackle this growing market.

Our tight-knit team is made up of ex-Revolut, Bain, HelloFresh, ASOS, Apple and Google employees, and we are backed by some of Europe’s leading investors and VCs in climate-tech, logistics and mobility including Planet A Ventures , Maersk Growth , Pale Blue Dot VC , Eka Ventures , NordicNinja VC and the British government. We’re passionate about driving innovation and redefining the future of delivery.

Role Overview 📝

We are looking for a Lead Engineer to take ownership of one of HIVED’s highest-impact technical domains: the planning pipeline that powers supply-demand matching, parcel distribution, and routing optimisation.

As part of HIVED’s Routing Squad, you’ll lead the team tackling some of the most complex and intellectually demanding problems in computer science — building systems that decide how parcels move through the city efficiently, reliably, and at scale. This is a rare opportunity to combine deep engineering expertise, optimisation thinking, and real-world domain understanding to shape a core strategic advantage for HIVED.

You’ll own the technical direction of the squad, set a high bar for engineering quality, and lead a team of engineers working closely with data scientists, analysts, product, and operations. Your work will have a direct and visible impact: better routing, stronger planning capabilities, more efficient operations, and a delivery network you can see improving in the city around you.

What You'll be Doing 🚀

Lead the Routing Squad across technical strategy, delivery, team leadership, and execution of squad goals.

Own the technical direction for systems supporting routing optimisation, supply-demand matching, parcel distribution, forecasting, and planning.

Translate business priorities and operational needs into clear technical strategy, measurable outcomes, and pragmatic execution plans.

Guide architecture and system design for scalable, reliable, production-grade optimisation and planning systems.

Work closely with optimisation engineers, backend engineers, data scientists, analysts, product, and operational stakeholders to turn complex problems into shipped solutions.

Lead the exploration and evaluation of new approaches across routing, scheduling, optimisation, forecasting, and distributed systems.

Set and uphold a high engineering bar through technical reviews, architectural guidance, mentoring, and accountability for maintainable software.

Manage, coach, and develop engineers in the squad, including hiring, performance management, development planning, and resourcing.

Foster a culture of curiosity, ownership, high performance, and continuous learning within the team.

What We're Looking For 🔎

5+ years of software engineering experience, including backend or distributed systems development.

Experience leading engineers, either as a people manager or as a senior technical leader with meaningful ownership over team delivery.

Proven ability to translate complex, ambiguous business or operational problems into robust technical solutions.

Strong system design and architectural skills in distributed, production-grade environments.

An appetite for hard optimisation problems — especially routing, scheduling, forecasting, supply-demand matching, or other constraint-heavy domains.

Strong analytical thinking and the ability to combine technical depth with practical judgement.

A track record of setting high engineering standards and helping teams consistently meet them.

Experience working cross-functionally with product, operations, data scientists, analysts, and senior leadership.

Strong ownership mindset: you care about the strategy, the system, the team, and the real-world outcome.

Nice to have:

Experience with routing, scheduling, optimisation, forecasting, logistics, mobility, or marketplace systems.

Experience productionising algorithms, solvers, models, or data-heavy decision systems.

Familiarity with optimisation techniques such as linear/integer programming, constraint programming, heuristics, or solver-based approaches.

Experience working in a fast-scaling operational environment where software has a direct physical-world impact.

Technologies we use 💻

Backend languages: Python, Go

Tech infrastructure: AWS, CDK TypeScript, Lambda, SQS, EventBridge, RDS, DynamoDB

Data tooling: GCP, BigQuery, Looker, Looker Studio

Observability: Loki, Tempo, Grafana, Prometheus

Event-driven architecture and domain-driven design

Our interviewing process 🪜

Intro call with the hiring manager

Live coding challenge solving a problem

A take home case study, followed by a discussion

On-site interview at our Shoreditch HQ (role and culture)

Our Values

😊 We Are Kind - Kind to the planet, our team and our partners. We listen with purpose, leave our egos at the door and aren't afraid to make difficult decisions. We must never confuse kindness with being "nice" - it requires us to be fair, consistent, honest, thoughtful and compassionate.

🤝 We Are Tenacious - We fight every day to keep the customer promise, for every parcel entrusted to us. No matter how hard it gets or whatever stands in our way, we are relentless in our pursuit of excellence.

💡 We Are Curious - We never settle, constantly challenge convention and are never afraid to ask why. We believe there is always more to learn, always a better way, and that we're always only just getting started. We never fight the urge to be inquisitive, to understand the world around us and to explore where others might not.

🌍 We Are Resourceful - Our planet's resources are scarce and our future depends on our ability to use them wisely. Waste is the enemy. We strive to do more with less, be more efficient and make the most of what we have.

How we reward our team 🎁

Dynamic hybrid working environment with a diverse and driven team

Huge opportunity for learning in a high growth environment, with progression opportunities based on success in the role

25 days of holiday allowance plus public holidays

1 Birthday Day Off + 2 Tenure-Based Additional Days Off

Subsidised Private Medical Insurance including dental, vision & mental health therapy

Bi-annual performance reviews and tailored development plans

Competitive salary + EMI options scheme

Annual compensation review

Team lunch provided once a week

Quarterly team socials and annual sports day (HIVED Olympics)

Enhanced maternity/paternity/adoption policy as day 1 right

Community volunteer days

Cycle to work scheme

Dog friendly office and depots

MacBook Air or Windows Laptop (depending on your preference)

🔍 Want to learn more?

🎥 Meet the team in 60 seconds: Behind the scenes with HIVED

HIVED is B Corporation certified

HIVED is #7 on The Sunday Times Tech 100

Read how HIVED raised $42M to transform parcel delivery with AI and all-electric logistics network

Check the Impact Reports for 2024 and 2025