Senior Software Engineer

The Company

We’re Octopus Legacy: one of the fastest growing tech companies in the country, part of the UK’s most exciting and best-trusted group (you may have heard of some of our sister companies…) and we have a mission.

We’re on a path to scale, aiming to become a household name while transforming a long-established industry and helping our customers prepare for, and find support after, death.

But we can’t do it alone, and that’s why we’re assembling a team of top performers to build with us.

Ready to be part of something big?

The Role  

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead the design and development of scalable, cloud-native systems, leveraging modern architecture principles such as microservices and serverless frameworks.
• Write maintainable, efficient, and clean code primarily in Python, focusing on performance, scalability, and reliability.
• Build and maintain robust automated testing and CI/CD pipelines to support fast, frequent, and reliable deployments.
• Work closely with cross-functional stakeholders, including product managers, designers, and other engineers, to gather requirements, develop features, and address user needs.
• Drive best practices in development, demonstrating a strong balance between rapid iteration and high-quality output.
• Participate in code reviews, architectural discussions, and continuous improvement initiatives to foster a culture of technical excellence.
• Champion a lean mindset and agile methodologies, contributing to sprint planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives.
• Engage with the product and users to understand their needs, ensuring that the solutions delivered align with business goals and enhance the customer experience.

Who Are You?

Must Haves:

• Extensive experience in software development using Python or similar languages.
• Strong cloud experience, ideally with AWS (e.g., Lambda, S3, SNS, SQS, DynamoDB); however, similar expertise in GCP or Azure is also highly valued.
• Proven ability to design, build, and maintain cloud-native applications with a focus on scalability, performance, and reliability.
• Hands-on experience with automated testing practices and CI/CD tools such as CircleCI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or cloud-native solutions like AWS CodePipeline.
• Ability to thrive in a startup environment, embracing change, iteration, and rapid development cycles.
• Strong understanding of RESTful APIs, with experience in building, consuming, and optimising them.
• Experience or familiarity with OpenAI APIs or other LLMs, with an interest in integrating these technologies into products.
• Excellent collaboration and communication skills, enabling smooth work across engineering and non-engineering teams.
• Experience working in agile teams and familiarity with agile development practices.
• A passion for building products that deliver real value to users and a strong customer-centric approach.

Nice to Haves:

• Experience with serverless frameworks (e.g., Serverless Framework, AWS SAM) or equivalent technologies on GCP/Azure.
• Familiarity with infrastructure as code (IaC) tools like AWS CloudFormation, Terraform, or equivalent tools in other cloud environments.
• Experience with containerization (e.g., Docker) and orchestration tools like Kubernetes or ECS.
• Background in event-driven architecture.
• Understanding of Python web frameworks such as Flask or FastAPI.
• Experience optimising applications for cloud performance, cost-efficiency, and scalability.
• Hands-on experience with monitoring and logging tools (e.g., AWS CloudWatch, Datadog, ELK stack).
• An understanding of lean software development principles and practices focused on delivering value quickly.
• A passion for mentoring and sharing knowledge, contributing to a culture of continuous learning and growth.

Our Mission

When people think about planning for death they think about wills, life insurance and funerals. We take these cold processes and turn them into something more human. Share more than money: leave voice notes, music, recipes. Shape a legacy that connects you while you're here. And after you're gone.

Founded by Sam after his mum died suddenly, we’re a group of people who work in death because we’ve been affected by it. We know the difference a good p