Staff Back-end Engineer [Paid relocation to Barcelona]

This role is based in Barcelona and would require relocation. Preply fully supports the relocation process.

We power people’s progress.

At Preply, we’re all about creating life-changing learning experiences. We help people discover the magic of the perfect tutor, craft a personalised learning journey, and stay motivated to keep growing. Our approach is human-led, tech-enabled - and it’s creating real impact.

We’ve just reached unicorn status with a $150M Series D, accelerating our vision to transform education through human-led, AI-enhanced learning. Today, 100,000+ tutors teach 90+ languages to learners in 180 countries - and we’re only getting started. As a category-defining company, we’re shaping what the future of learning looks like at global scale.

Every Preply lesson sparks change, fuels ambition, and drives progress that matters. Joining Preply means helping define the future of education at global scale, and building something that truly matters for millions of people, every day.

Meet the team!

This is a high-impact individual contributor role with broad scope. You will operate at the intersection of product, engineering, and business, driving strategy, architecture, and execution for some of the most critical areas of Preply.

At Preply, being a Staff Engineer is about multiplying impact beyond a single team. You don’t just execute, you help define what problems matter, align teams around them, and drive solutions across the organization. You’ll partner closely with engineering and product leadership, shape technical direction, and raise the bar for how we build and scale.

You’ll be joining one of our Product Tribes — Learning or Monetization:

• In Learning, you’ll help build the next generation of AI-powered, personalized learning experiences for millions of users.
• In Monetization, you’ll work on high-impact systems like payments, subscriptions, and bookings — directly influencing revenue, conversion, and the future of how tutors earn on the platform.

What you’ll be doing

• Shape technical strategy & drive execution. Partner with Engineering and Product leadership to define and co-own the tribe’s engineering strategy and technical roadmap. Lead end-to-end strategic initiatives, from ideation to delivery, translating product vision into clear technical execution, aligning scope, milestones, and delivering measurable outcomes iteratively.
• Lead architecture & platform evolution. Act as a key architect for the future state of our systems. Evolve core services into a scalable, reliable platform by defining target architectures, driving migrations and deprecations, and ensuring technical excellence across performance, availability, and cost efficiency, always balancing long-term vision with pragmatism.
• Raise engineering excellence & developer experience. Continuously improve how we build. Identify bottlenecks, reduce friction, and drive initiatives that increase team productivity. Champion high engineering standards through RFCs, post-mortems, and quality frameworks (instrumentation, evaluations), ensuring we build the right things in the right way.
• Operate as a multiplier. Extend your impact beyond your own work. Mentor and influence Senior Engineers, Tech Leads, and Engineering Managers, contribute to hiring, and elevate the overall technical bar. Stay hands-on for the most complex and high-impact challenges, leading by example where it matters most.
• Drive technical decision-making. Own critical technical and strategic decisions, including build-vs-buy trade-offs. Lead tooling and vendor evaluations with a clear understanding of total cost of ownership, ensuring decisions align with both technical needs and business goals.

What you’ll bring

• Strong Python expertise. Python is a core part of our stack, so we’re looking for someone who is very comfortable designing, building, and reviewing production systems in Python.
• Strong engineering foundations & system thinking. You have a solid background in software engineering and architecture, with experience designing and evolving large-scale systems. You’re able to derive technical strategy from business goals and understand how APIs, services, and data flows translate into real user impact.
• Hands-on, strategic mindset. You connect high-level strategy with execution. You’re comfortable diving into code, building proofs of concept, and iterating quickly with teams to validate ideas.
• End-to-end ownership. You take ownership from ambiguous problem definition through to delivery, launch, and operational stability, with a clear focus on measurable outcomes.
• Ability to influence and align. You’re an excellent communicator, able to articulate technical vision, trade-offs, and business value to engineering, product, and leadership stakeholders. You influence without relying on formal authority and help align multiple teams toward shared goals.
• Product-minded engineering. You approach engineering with a strong product lens - making thoughtful trade-offs and connecting technical decisions to user experience and business impact.
• Comfort operating across domains. You’re able to move fluidly between different types of work - new feature development, system design, architecture evolution, migrations, and process improvements.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making skills. You’re analytical and creative in your approach, able to explore multiple solutions, evaluate trade-offs, and make pragmatic decisions under uncertainty.
• Driving engineering excellence. You have experience raising the bar across teams — mentoring senior engineers, influencing tech leads, contributing to hiring, and shaping engineering culture through practices like RFCs, post-mortems, and quality frameworks.
• Comfort in evolving environments. You thrive in environments that are changing and growing, and are able to adapt as priorities and context evolve.

Why you’ll love it at Preply:

• An open, collaborative, dynamic, and diverse culture;
• A generous monthly allowance for lessons on Preply.com, Learning & Development budget, and time off for your self-development;
• A competitive financial package with equity, leave allowance, and health insurance;
• Not in Barcelona? We offer an attractive relocation package to join us in our Preply Barcelona Hub;
• Access to free mental health support platforms;
• Access to Gympass-partnered wellness and gym centers throughout Spain to promote and support well-being and physical health;
• The opportunity to shape the lives of learners and tutors through language learning and teaching in 175 countries (and counting!).

Our Principles

• Care to change the world - We are passionate about our work and care deeply about its impact to be life changing.
• We do it for learners - For both Preply and tutors, learners are why we do what we do. Every day we focus on empowering tutors to deliver an exceptional learning experience.
• Keep perfecting - To create an outstanding customer experience, we focus on simplicity, smoothness, and enjoyment, continually perfecting it as every detail matters.
• Now is the time - In a fast-paced world, it matters how quickly we act. Now is the time to make great things happen.
• Disciplined execution - What makes us disciplined is the excellence in our execution. We set clear goals, focus on what matters, and utilize our resources efficiently.
• Dive deep - We leverage business acumen and curiosity to investigate disparities between numbers and stories, unlocking meaningful insights to guide our decisions.
• Growth mindset - We proactively seek growth opportunities and believe today's best performance becomes tomorrow's starting point. We humbly embrace feedback and learn from setbacks.
• Raise the bar - We raise our performance standards continuously, alongside each new hire and promotion. We build diverse and high-performing teams that can make a real difference.
• Challenge, disagree and commit - We value open and candid communication, even when we don’t fully agree. We speak our minds, challenge when necessary, and fully commit to decisions once made.
• One Preply - We prioritize collaboration, inclusion, and the success of our team over personal ambitions. Together, we support and celebrate each other's progress.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Preply.com is committed to creating an inclusive environment where people of diverse backgrounds can thrive. We believe that the presence of different opinions and viewpoints is a key ingredient for our success as a multicultural Ed-Tech company. That means that Preply will consider all applications for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age or veteran status.