Software Engineer, Back End

Level: 3
Salary band: £70,000-£85,000
Bonus: 5% performance-based, discretionary
Location: Hybrid

We’re looking for a Software Engineer based out of our London HQ whose mission is to build lab automation products at the intersection of hardware and software in the life-sciences automation space that can transform the industry, accelerating science.

About the team

Our engineers are more than just technically skilled; they’re driven by curiosity and a growth mindset. They find immense joy in seeing the software power the robots and the hardware bench, transporting plates from instrument to instrument. They understand the profound impact of their work on the life sciences industry, and this fuels their passion.

The core skills we’d like to see:

• Python for our application code, APIs and SDK, and scripting
• Experience with SQL or NoSQL databases e.g. PostgreSQL, Couchbase, DynamoDB
• Cloud experience

We are flexible and look for the right folks. You are not expected to know everything, but here are our core technologies:

• React with Typescript
• Event-driven architecture, employing technologies such as Kafka, gRPC and Protobuf for event definitions DynamoDB
• Websocket connections
• Kubernetes and Docker for running our applications
• Observability platform via Datadog
• Feature flags to enable us to experiment and control when we release new features to customers
• Solver technology and algorithms to drive our workflow scheduling solver engine
• Deployment on AWS to ECS, Lambda and EKS, with infrastructure managed via Terraform and pipelines via CircleCI

In this role, you will be responsible for:

• Shipping and building a resilient product with scale and reliability in mind so that we can entrust our product into the hands of our customers with pride, accounting for quality and security.
• Taking pragmatic approaches and keeping it simple by solving for problems that we have, not for problems we might encounter.
• Building an agile architecture that is expected to evolve and is flexible to adapt.
• Collaborating and supporting your team because code is just one part of the job, but being a team player is a massive part. We prioritise working together with product partners, design and engineering to ensure transparency and alignment in our direction.
• Putting customers at the heart of what you do by understanding what makes sense for our users and engaging with them with integrity.

What it takes:

• Production experience across the core technology stack of Python and React, ideally working on data-intensive applications, microservices, event-driven architecture, SaaS or edge services. We also welcome diverse experiences in other languages, such as Golang and Rust.
• Automation-focused with a DevOps mindset in setting up pipelines for managing our deployments and quality gates.
• Delivery-focused and pragmatic in ensuring customer value is delivered efficiently, with necessary trade-offs considered, balancing strategic direction, quality and resiliency.
• Collaborative problem solver who contributes to up-skilling the team, helping to resolve issues, sharing knowledge, and elevating others around you.
• Have a product mindset, always keen to understand customer needs. Participate in product and design discussions, contributing ideas to ensure we
• Comfortable dealing with ambiguity, thinking through the problem space, shaping the product, seeking feedback, and adjusting the product through iterations.