Lead Software Engineer

At Phrase, we help open the door to global business by providing the world’s most comprehensive localization platform.

We’re transforming language technology with our AI platform to give people the content they need, in the language they speak. Whether it's for digital products like an app or website, marketing comms, legal literature, internal comms or customer service messaging, Phrase ensures that content always hits its mark by being on brand, consistent, and culturally resonant.

With a global team working from our offices in Hamburg and Prague—or from home across Europe, the UK, the US, and the APAC region—we help organizations like Uber, Shopify, Puma, Snowflake, Volkswagen and thousands of others engage their customers at scale to accelerate growth.

As a Lead Software Engineer in the Neural AI Team at Phrase, you will drive the evolution of AI-powered localization, focusing on machine translation workflows and backend platform capabilities. You’ll guide technical direction, foster alignment, and ensure impactful outcomes.

This role goes beyond coding—you’ll own complex initiatives, shape product and architectural decisions, and empower the team to scale its impact. Whether or not you take on line management, you’ll act as a domain leader, ensuring clarity and direction for both the team and stakeholders.

We are looking for a product-minded engineer who prioritizes customer value, navigates trade-offs, and promotes collaboration across engineering, product, and design.

What you’ll be responsible for:

• Define technical strategy and architecture for AI-driven translation workflows.
• Integrate external translation engines and models to extend Phrase’s platform.
• Collaborate with Product and Design to deliver valuable, scalable solutions.
• Lead end-to-end initiatives, balancing delivery with system evolution.
• Foster team autonomy and ownership.
• Mentor engineers and support technical decision-making.
• Lead by example with clean, scalable, testable code.
• Represent Neural AI in architecture and strategy discussions.
• Align with Generative AI, Research, and Infrastructure teams on shared initiatives.
• Proactively resolve ambiguity and reduce cross-team friction.

What you need:

• Proven experience as a Tech Lead or Senior Engineer in backend systems within product-led environments.
• Strong backend skills in Java (17+), Spring Boot, and ideally Groovy/Grails.
• Solid grasp of scalable architectures, distributed systems, streaming (Kafka), and async communication (RabbitMQ).
• Proficiency with relational and NoSQL databases (MariaDB, MongoDB), CI/CD pipelines, containerization, and AWS or similar.
• Product-oriented mindset with a focus on customer outcomes and pragmatic problem-solving.
• Collaborative, hands-on, and adaptable—balancing alignment with decisive execution.

What you’ll get:

• Work experience in a successful and growing global SaaS company.
• Be part of an international team of 300+ in Europe, APAC, and the Americas.
• Expert colleagues in their field who are determined to build the best localization platform on the market, creating a world where language never limits opportunity.
• An agile work environment, where it is encouraged to take smart risks.
• Take part in a culture full of trust, support and loyalty, where respectful and open feedback is valued, and diversity is fully embraced.
• A positive, open-minded, and innovative atmosphere.
• Support in your professional development and personal career goals.

What's on top:

• 4 Company holidays additional to your regular holidays (1 day per quarter where the entire company is off to celebrate our achievements).
• In addition, the company also provides employees with a Christmas break to allow you to spend time with family and friends without use of your vacation allocation.
• Your birthday is off because it is important to celebrate you as well.
• 2 Giveback days where you can support the local community, volunteer, and/or participate in charity events and activities.
• Professional and extensive onboarding.
• Learning & development through Phrase learning and a dedicated ChatGPT Plus user license.
• Additional local benefits depending on the entity you're hired at, just ask your Talent Acquisition Partner.

At Phrase we believe in the critical importance of diversity in all its forms and intersectionalities, and are committed to ensuring that the people we interview reflect this diversity. We therefore strongly encourage people of any identity to apply for our exciting career opportunities. We have taken an active decision to make our work environment inclusive every day, starting at the very beginning of your Phrase experience.

We value and welcome different perspectives, experiences and backgrounds as we believe that these differences make our team even stronger on our mission of opening the door to global business by giving everybody access to the content they need in the language they speak.