Team Lead Engineering - Backend (f/m/d)

ZEAL Network SE is a dynamic, international group of companies that has been creating exciting and innovative lottery experiences for over 20 years. As Germany’s largest provider of online lotteries through our brands LOTTO24 and Tipp24, and a trusted partner of Spain’s ONCE, the second-largest national lottery, we’re shaping the future of the lottery industry. We are passionate about driving innovation, as demonstrated by our newest brands, Freiheit+ and Traumhausverlosung, which bring fresh and exciting dreams to life. Additionally, through ZEAL Ventures, we invest in inspiring e-commerce start-ups like Omaze and DAYMADE, fueling fresh ideas and opportunities.

Our team of 350+ professionals from diverse backgrounds is united by a visionary mindset, a passion for collaboration, and a commitment to inspire dreams. At ZEAL, we empower our people to think ambitiously and work together toward a shared purpose: helping people imagine and achieve their aspirations.

As our Engineering Team Lead (f/m/d) , you combine hands-on technical expertise to lead with strong people leadership and grow a high-performing team. You'll drive technical and architectural decisions, contribute to the codebase yourself, and ensure your team's services strengthen Zeal's B2B core platform. Working closely with Product Management and stakeholders, you'll balance business goals, customer experience, and technical excellence.

Your tasks:

• You lead a product-focused engineering team that builds and evolves Zeal's core B2B platform capabilities for internal business customers

• Lead technically and strategically, define and drive architectural decisions together with your team

• Code as part of the team: While guiding architecture and strategy, you’ll regularly write code, contribute to features, and help solve complex technical challenges together with your team

• Champion the effective use of AI in your team's engineering workflows (e.g. AI-assisted development and tooling) and explore opportunities to apply AI within the platform's capabilities

• Act as a sparring partner for Product Management and our internal businesses to define and drive product and tech strategy

• Deliver secure, robust and maintainable technical solutions while focusing on great customer experiences and business needs

• Drive collaboration: Work closely with other teams to align APIs, technical interfaces, and architectural consistency

• Own and operate the domain and the team’s microservices.

What you offer us:

• Proven people leadership skills, with an empowering style that enables rather than micromanages

• Strong and up-to-date hands-on experience working with Kotlin/Spring Boot, Mongo/PostgresDB

• A “You build it, you run it” mindset, with experience in deploying, monitoring, and maintaining microservices on Kubernetes.

• Strong understanding of how to create and evolve REST-APIs that clients like to use and Event-driven processing pipelines built on Kafka.

• Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions, and to align diverse stakeholders

• Excellent organizational and prioritization skills in dynamic settings

• Proactive, ownership-driven mindset

• Strong engineering fundamentals in building secure, scalable, and reliable systems, including security-by-design, resilience patterns, and operating production systems at scale.

• Preferred: Experience with introducing and evolving agentic AI development practices and operating models.

What we offer:

• State-of-the-art technologies and an agile environment (Check our Tech Radar: )

• A modern, dynamic culture grounded in the success of a leading-edge e-commerce company.

• A talented team of ambitious, like-minded colleagues where your knowledge and ideas truly make an impact.

• Ongoing personal growth, supported by an annual development budget of €1,500 to invest in your professional development.

• Trust and autonomy, no micromanagement, just confidence in your ability to deliver and excel.

• Flexible work options with a hybrid setup focused on results.

• Unlimited vacation days in addition to your yearly 30-day vacation allowance.

• Opportunity for workations abroad using our WorkFlex tool.

• Monthly mobility allowance of €30 to use on the mobility option of your choice (e.g., the Deutschlandticket), plus access to a company bike leasing program.

• Company pension scheme, provided in partnership with Degura, to support your future financial security.

• Subsidized EGYM WELLPASS membership, with a contribution of only €25 per month, giving you access to a wide range of gyms and sports options across Germany.

• Monthly company events, team activities, and informal gatherings, including our popular company-wide lunches provided four days a week.