Meet Catawiki, Europe’s Leading Curated Auction Marketplace, Now Hiring in Portugal 🇵🇹

This company from the Netherlands is hiring software engineers and offers relocation to Europe, particularly to sunny Portugal.

Company overview

• Company name: Catawiki

• HQ: Amsterdam

• Other work locations: Lisbon (Portugal) and Paris (France)

• Team diversity: 60+ nationalities

• Company size: 750+ employees

• Number of software engineers working in 2026: 80+ people

• Latest funding round: €150M Series D (December 2020), led by Permira & Accel

• Revenue: Over €100 million in FY24 (profitable company; 2025 was a particularly strong year)

Every month, 14 million people visit Catawiki to bid on vintage watches, rare comics, classic cars, and fine art. Behind that traffic is an engineering team that builds real-time auction systems, recommendation engines, and the search infrastructure that helps buyers find a vintage Rolex among 75,000 weekly listings. Catawiki counts on Relocate.me to recruit the software engineers who make this possible, and is offering visa assistance and relocation support to Portugal.

The company started in 2008, when René Schoenmakers wanted a better way to catalogue his comic book collection. He partnered with developer Marco Jansen, and what began as a collector’s wiki became one of Europe’s leading curated auction marketplaces. Today, more than 240 in-house experts authenticate every object before it goes live, while engineers keep bidding running without incident across 60 countries.

The company operates a growing office in Lisbon, where nearly 20% of its workforce now sits. Catawiki opened in Portugal less than two years ago and already employs over 140 people from a wide range of nationalities. In 2025, they moved into a new two-floor headquarters at the Marquês de Pombal Square with a terrace overlooking the city.

I’m telling you this as someone who’s been speaking directly with their recruiter: Portugal is Catawiki’s hiring priority for 2026. The Lisbon tech team currently has about 10 people and plans to grow to 40 this year across engineering, product, UX, and data. If you’re a software engineer looking to relocate to Europe, you’ll know by now that Portugal, one of Europe’s sunniest countries, holds a cost of living that’s 20% more affordable than the Netherlands. Catawiki (a Dutch company!) seems to understand all this, and they’re now setting engineers up so they can live in Portugal.

This article covers Catawiki’s engineering team, tech stack, relocation support, and hiring process so that, by the end, you can decide whether to apply.

Catawiki as a company

For nearly two decades, Catawiki has hosted weekly online auctions across more than 80 categories: art, design, jewelry, fashion, classic cars, and collectibles. In contrast to general marketplaces like eBay, Catawiki is different because each listing is carefully chosen by experts. Before an object can show up on the platform, it has to be authenticated first.

In February 2024, Catawiki opened a new office in Lisbon. The move was the company’s entry into Portugal. That office already has more than 140 workers, most of whom used to be in customer service but are now also in tech jobs.

The team at Catawiki

Catawiki employs people from over 60 countries. The culture runs eclectic and mixes generations and professional backgrounds across offices in Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Paris. The company publicly commits to an inclusive, queer-friendly workplace. Engineers work across multiple domains: the bidding platform, search and discovery, seller tools, logistics, and the mobile apps used by buyers around the world.

What Catawiki offers when you move to Portugal

Engineers who move to Lisbon for Catawiki get a generous relocation package. BridgeIn, a local partner, helps the company with work permits, getting visas for you and your family, and applying for the Non-Habitual Resident (NHR) tax regime. They also make sure you are registered to live in the area with the local government and pick up your resident permit. These are some of the details of what Catawiki offers. I got this first-hand because their team shared the info with me.

In terms of relocation package, when you relocate to Portugal, you get:

• Travel and settling-in allowance. Catawiki extends a relocation fee that covers flights, logistics, bank account setup, and health insurance.

• Visa and permit costs paid by Catawiki for you and your family members.

• Visa renewals for you and any family members who moved with you.

• Certificate of Conduct: Catawiki pays for the background check from your current country of residence.

For settling in, what you get is:

• Temporary stay: up to 1 month at a Catawiki-designated hotel in Lisbon, booked by the HR team once you share your flight details.

• Help with finding a home: a partner guides you through the Lisbon rental market, joins you at viewings, helps with offers, and advises on utilities and local registration.

• School consultation: a session for families with school-age children (4–18) about the local education system.

The NHR system in Portugal can lower the tax rate on newcomers’ employment income if they meet certain requirements. Catawiki’s partner BridgeIn helps you apply. You can read more about moving to Portugal on Relocate.me.

In your first week, you’ll participate in Catawiki’s DNA week alongside other new joiners. You’ll have chats with C-level executives, in-house experts, and central functional departments. The company wants to make sure you understand the business from the core. You’ll also have a full technical onboarding to get yourself up to speed quickly.

Working at Catawiki as a Software Engineer

Catawiki has engineers who work on the bidding platform, search systems, backend services, mobile apps, and the internal tools that power more than 300 auctions every week. The team runs A/B tests to validate assumptions and monitors system performance across dozens of microservices.

The platform handles spikes when popular auctions close and bidders compete in the final seconds. Engineers build the systems that keep latency low during these moments while serving buyers in 60 countries.

Tech stack and progression

The backend began entirely in Ruby on Rails, which was the leading web framework when Catawiki launched in 2008 (yes, Ruby on Rails actually launched in 2004!). Ruby remains central today, alongside TypeScript and React on the web frontend, and native languages for iOS and Android mobile apps.

Their microservice architecture consists of 35 different microservices, mainly Ruby with 3 in Go. They run a Kubernetes-orchestrated infrastructure on Google Cloud Platform. They can quickly add new features, scale each service separately, and find and fix production problems because each microservice covers a different part of the product domain.

Teams and career growth

Catawiki organizes engineers by product domain. A bidding team might include backend and frontend developers working together on auction logic, while a separate search team handles discovery and recommendations. Data professionals join where needed. With this structure, engineers can take full responsibility for their domain instead of passing work back and forth between separate teams.

Peer-led sessions and collaborative code reviews are ways for engineers to share what they know. Team members keep trying new things and use data to back up what they decide.

Joining Catawiki: Their package in a “few” bullet points

As someone who works with companies that post relocation-friendly jobs, I usually leave these details out of an initial company overview. But Catawiki’s package is so comprehensive that I decided to feature it.

Some of their benefits are Portugal-specific and might leave you scratching your head (holiday allowance!?), but you can always drop a comment below, and I’ll relay your questions to their team.

This is what you get if you work for Catawiki and relocate to Portugal. Here it goes.

• Hybrid work model: Choose how you split your week between home and office (typically 2 days in office), with commute costs covered. The office is by the Marquês de Pombal Square in Lisbon.

• Macbook as your company laptop

• Meal voucher: €8 net per working day

• Work-from-home allowance: €25 gross per month

• At least 32 days paid time off (including public holidays), plus an extra day to follow your passion (!)

• Maternity, family, and parental leave aligned with the local market (quite generous in Portugal)

• Health insurance (MGEN): access to the AdvanceCare network in Portugal (about 17,000 providers), with coverage for hospital stays, consultations, dental, prosthetics, and medicines. I’ll be discussing this again soon.

• Pension plan: fully paid by Catawiki

• Holiday allowance: an annual payment on top of your salary, as required by Portuguese labor law. In Portugal, your salary is paid in 14 installments: 12 regular months plus a holiday allowance (June/July) and a Christmas allowance (November/December), each equal to one month’s base pay. You can read more about the 14 salaries on Relocate.me.

We’re just midway through it, hold on. Okay, here we go:

• Catavouchers: €100 upon joining, €50 on birthdays, to buy special objects on the platform

• Referral bonus: €2,000 if you refer someone who gets hired (a good reason to forward this article and tell your friends about Catawiki)

• Bike program: up to 35% discount on a new bike

• Wellbeing program: Employee Advisory Programme for clinical services, single-session therapy, and wellness support

• Flexible location: you can work from home in other countries for up to 20 days a year

• Performance reviews and development: clear review cycles and development programmes to help you grow

• Recognition programme: cash and experience rewards for contributions

• Extra days of leave for work anniversaries (at 3, 5, 8, and 10 years)

Yes, that’s a lot of information, but it was worth sharing.

A closer look at the health insurance

The MGEN health plan is too detailed to fully break down in an article, but if you’re seriously considering a move to Lisbon, these numbers matter. Here’s what the plan covers so you know what to expect before you sign.

Coverage limits per insured member, per year:

• In-hospital (surgeries, hospitalizations, oncology): €60,000 annual limit

• Outpatient (consultations, exams): €2,500 annual limit

• Prosthetics and glasses: €1,000 annual limit (€50 deductible)

• Dental (consultations and treatments): €500 annual limit (€50 deductible)

• Medicines (co-paid by NHS): €200 annual limit (€3 deductible per prescription)

Co-payments and reimbursement:

• In-network: co-payments apply. Consultations cost €18, with a maximum of €35

• Out-of-network: expenses are reimbursed at 50% for in-hospital care

Other details:

• Network: AdvanceCare in Portugal (about 17,000 providers) and the HNA network in Spain

• Waiting periods: 90 days for most coverages. 365 days for certain major procedures and chronic illnesses

• Wellness: access to the wellness network at discounted rates

• Online medicine: 24/7 access to telephone, video, and home medical consultations across mainland Portugal, the Azores, and Madeira (Cristiano Ronaldo’s hometown)

For a sense of what living costs in Portugal look like, you can check out this page on Relocate.me.

Browse open roles in Lisbon at catawiki.careers/location-lisbon-office, or you can find the latest tech roles at Catawiki here: relocate.me/companies-hiring/catawiki.

Candidate profile

Catawiki candidates typically have experience in software development, with strong backend skills in Ruby, and excellent English. Engineers have a say in everything from search algorithms to real-time bidding systems, so they need to be able to solve problems and take the initiative.

Neither Dutch nor Portuguese is required. You can get a job offer and relocate to Lisbon with Catawiki if you speak English.

Hiring process: step-by-step guide

The hiring process at Catawiki follows a clear series of steps:

1. Recruiter screening call (30 minutes via Google Meet) to discuss your background, experience, and expectations

2. Technical interview (45–60 minutes via Google Meet) with two developers. The interview covers troubleshooting and coding skills using CoderPad

3. Final interviews: 1 behavioral interview + 2 technical interviews. Technical rounds include system design (using Miro for diagrams) and may be tailored to your specialization (Backend, Frontend, Android, etc.)

The company recommends familiarizing yourself with CoderPad and Miro beforehand. Technical questions cover basic knowledge and reflect what areas of technology you’re most familiar with: microservices, API development, databases, frameworks, system design, and A/B testing.

The expected turnaround from application to offer is typically a few weeks.

Extra pointers for the interview:

1. Be on time, or even slightly early.

2. Learn about Catawiki through their careers site, GitHub, and engineering blog on Medium.

3. Prepare a structured story of your background, skills, and future plans.

4. Read the guide on How to Prepare for the First Round Interview With an International Recruiter.

The Lisbon office is hiring software engineers in 2026 🇵🇹

As I mentioned earlier, Catawiki’s top hiring priority for 2026 is filling roles in Portugal. Since opening in February 2024, the Lisbon office has grown to have over 20% of the company’s workforce.

If you’ve been out of the loop, you might not know they’re hiring engineers. Actually, at first, it was a place for customer service, but it now also hires for tech roles with relocation support. Engineers in Lisbon and Amsterdam use the same platform and codebase.

I’ve written a lot about Portugal and how affordable it is. Living in Lisbon costs less than living in Amsterdam, and the weather is pleasant year-round along Portugal’s coastline.

After going over the data last year, I found out that Lisbon is a bit expensive compared to the Portuguese benchmark salary. Nonetheless, it has a great cost-of-living ratio if you have an above-average salary or if you choose your neighborhood strategically. The tech scene is also growing. Portugal’s Tech Visa also makes things easier for engineers from outside the EU.

Browse open roles in Lisbon: catawiki.careers/location-lisbon-office

Catawiki, languages, and citizenship

English is the working language at Catawiki. The company hires engineers who don’t speak Portuguese or Dutch. With 60+ nationalities on staff, you’ll be working alongside people from all over the world.

You don’t need to know Portuguese to work in the Lisbon offices. Also, if you move to Portugal, after just five years, you can request Portuguese citizenship via the naturalization path. There are plenty of unverified versions about this path, so I suggest you read the Relocate.me guide on Portuguese citizenship, since we’ve thoroughly researched how the process works.

Why Catawiki could be your next move

Catawiki runs 300+ auctions every week for 14 million monthly visitors. The engineering team builds the real-time bidding systems, search infrastructure, and recommendation engines that make this work. If you want to solve high-traffic problems alongside colleagues from 60+ countries, the company sponsors visas and helps engineers relocate to Lisbon.

You can consider applying for any location. Lisbon has sunny days, world-famous pastry, and is a short ride away from famous beaches. Amsterdam, where the company hails from, has great transportation links, a strong startup scene, and a high quality of life that makes it one of Europe’s best places for tech professionals to live. For more on what to expect, see The Global Move‘s guide on moving to Europe for work.

I hope you can land a job at Catawiki after reading this guide (and that you eventually recommend a friend and take home the €2,000 referral bonus). Good luck!