Senior Software Engineer

We are hiring a Senior Software Engineer to join our Core Data Services squad. This small but mighty team owns our shared data release assets and is responsible for building various shared tooling that enables work across the researcher and data platform.

The tooling we build supports critical data processing and storage of high-volume health, NHS, and genetic datasets, as well as release to accredited Trusted Research Environments (TREs).

We’re looking for candidates with strong experience in Python and cloud-native data processing and storage technologies, especially PySpark/Databricks, K8s, Postgres, Dagster, and Azure. If you have solid experience in similar technologies and are looking to widen your knowledge and experience, we’d also be keen to hear from you. We’re looking for candidates who are passionate in their work, develop consistently high-quality code, and are adept at identifying, preventing, and troubleshooting problems.

Our Future Health will be the UK’s largest ever health research programme, bringing people together to develop new ways to detect, prevent and treat diseases. We are a charity, supported by the UK Government in partnership with charities and industry. We work closely with the NHS and with public authorities across all nations and regions of the UK.

Our plan is to bring together 5 million volunteers from right across the UK who will be asked to contribute information to help build one of the most detailed pictures we have ever had of people’s health. Researchers will be able to use this information to make new discoveries about human health and diseases. So future generations can live in good health for longer.

What You’ll Be Doing

• Hands-on development of new features, iterating on existing features, addressing product- or tech debt at the right time and contributing to continuously improving the quality of the code base.  
• Supporting your colleagues with pairing, code reviews, feedback, discussion, and other collaborative activities that help everyone reach high standards and result in the delivery of high-quality software products. 
• Engage in sessions for refining requirement and formulating architectural proposals in support of upcoming initiatives.  
• Engage in reflective sessions such as retrospectives to offer suggestions on how we can improve and help to drive change. 
• Collaborate with internal squads that use shared tooling built by the squad, and other platform squads.
• Participating in live operations support, monitoring live systems and quickly and effectively reacting to potential incidents.  
• Participation and contribution into wider engineering initiatives that look to evolve highly effective ways of working that fit for Our Future Health and work for the benefit of the Our Future Health engineering community.

To succeed in this role you will already have some of the following skills:

• Hands-on experience of working with open source data orchestration systems such as Dagster, Prefect, or Airflow
• Solid understanding of distributed compute engines such as Spark/Databricks
• Confidence using Docker, Kubernetes, and Helm in cloud environments
• Experience building software for public cloud environments (Azure preferred, AWS/GCP considered)
• Proficient with Python package development
• Knowledge of good data modelling and design patterns; in-depth knowledge of relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL) and familiarity other types of data store (blob, document, graph).
• Experience with HTTP APIs including scaling and standard auth protocols
• Experience working in an agile development team following best practices like unit testing, code reviews, CI/CD and pairing using tools like Git and GitHub.
• Strong experience of working with software engineering best practices including unit testing, CI/CD, code reviews, design documentation, and excellent debugging and troubleshooting skills
• Experience working in an agile development team
• Experience of operationally managing software components once live, including; observability, logging, metrics, error reporting, debugging and live incident management. 
• Exposure to working with sensitive personal data, GDPR compliance and ISO 27001. / Regulated environments
• Knowledge of Terraform and IaC

• A competitive base salary
• Generous Pension Scheme – We invest in your future with employer contributions of up to 12%.
• 30 Days Holiday + Bank Holidays – Enjoy a generous holiday allowance with the flexibility to take bank holidays when it suits you.
• Enhanced Parental Leave – Supporting you during life’s biggest moments.
• Career Growth & Development – £500 per year to spend on Learnerbly, our learning platform, plus regular appraisals and development opportunities.
• Cycle to Work Scheme – Save 25-39% on a new bike and accessories through salary sacrifice.
• Home & Tech Savings – Get up to 8% off on IKEA and Currys products, spreading the cost over 12 months through salary sacrifice
• £1,000 Employee Referral Bonus – Know someone amazing? Get rewarded for bringing them on board!
• Wellbeing Support – Access to Mental Health First Aiders, plus 24/7 online GP services and an Employee Assistance Programme for you and your family.
• A Great Place to Work – We have a lovely Central London office in Holborn, and offer flexible and remote working arrangements.
• Join us - let’s prevent disease together.