Senior Software Engineer

Description

Location: Remote/Hybrid UK-based)

Team: Engineering

Reports to: VP of Engineering

About SourceWhale

Financial Timesʼ fastest-growing software company in Europe 2025,

SourceWhale is a group of really smart people solving productivity problems for

people-intensive industries using AI and automation.

Founded in 2020, we are currently focused on automating the manual, tedious

parts of sales and recruitment activities, empowering companies and their

employees to get more done. The platform consolidates every stage of the

industry's work-flows into one sleek, integrated tool. Building alongside

cutting-edge LLMs, SourceWhale is poised to be the company that puts the AI

'agent' in recruitment agencies.

Voted one of The Sunday Timesʼ Best Places to Work 2025, we pursue

innovation, champion employee wellbeing and offer fast-paced growth in a

supportive transatlantic culture. Our engineering team is a group of thoughtful,

collaborative professionals who value quality, continuous improvement, and

meaningful product outcomes over outputs.

As we enter our next stage of growth, weʼre on the lookout for a Senior

Software Engineer who wants to make an impact on a platform used all day,

every working day, by thousands of people.

The Role

This is a senior role focused on technical leadership, stream-level delivery,

and engineering excellence.

Youʼll own complex technical work end-to-end, guide architectural and implementation decisions, mentor engineers across the stream, and help shape how we build software at SourceWhale. While this role remains hands-on, impact is measured not only by the code you write, but by how effectively you improve the quality, reliability, and effectiveness of the wider team.

Youʼll work closely with Product Managers, QA Engineers, Designers, and Software Engineers to deliver scalable, high-quality solutions across a platform

that includes:

Python backend services

Svelte/jQuery frontend applications

AWS cloud infrastructure

CRM integrations

Chrome and email extensions

OpenAI-powered workflows and automation

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys solving technically complex problems

while helping others grow and improving how teams operate.

What Youʼll Do

Lead complex technical delivery

Own the delivery of complex features and systems end-to-end.

Break ambiguous product problems into scalable technical solutions.

Balance speed, maintainability, reliability, and customer value in decision-

making.

Guide implementation decisions and technical trade-offs across the stream.

Drive technical excellence

Write maintainable, predictable, scalable code.

Perform thoughtful technical reviews that improve both code quality and

engineer capability.

Shape patterns, standards, and approaches that improve consistency

across the stream

Identify and resolve systemic technical issues, not just isolated bugs.

Influence architecture & design

Design efficient, scalable systems with long-term maintainability in mind.

Evaluate architectural trade-offs across integrations, APIs, infrastructure,

and product workflows.

Anticipate scaling challenges and operational risks early.

Contribute to broader engineering discussions through technical leadership

and peer influence.

Mentor & elevate engineers

Coach junior engineers on implementation, debugging, design patterns, and

engineering practices.

Provide timely, actionable technical feedback.

Support a culture of collaboration, ownership, accountability, and

continuous improvement.

Lead through example by modelling strong engineering judgement and

professionalism.

Improve reliability & operations

Improve deployment reliability, monitoring, and observability across the

stream.

Participate in and lead production incident response where needed.

Drive actionable post-mortems and operational improvements.

Advocate for proactive quality practices that reduce long-term operational

risk.

Collaborate cross-functionally

Partner closely with Product and QA to ensure the team understands what

is being built, why it matters, and how quality is maintained.

Simplify complex technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders.

Communicate risks, dependencies, and trade-offs clearly and early.

What Weʼre Looking For

Technical experience

Strong professional experience with backend development using Python.

Experience building modern frontend applications Svelte and/or jQuery

preferred).

Strong understanding of APIs, distributed systems, integrations, and

scalable application design.

Experience working across complex product ecosystems and multiple

technical surfaces.

Experience with any of the following is beneficial:

AWS cloud infrastructure

Browser/email extensions

CRM integrations

OpenAI APIs / LLM-powered applications

Observability and operational tooling

How We Expect Senior Engineers to

Operate

At SourceWhale, senior engineers are expected to create impact beyond

individual contribution.

You will likely thrive here if you:

Drive impact through technical leadership and execution

Hold high standards for quality, maintainability, and delivery

Coach and elevate engineers around you

Think deeply about systems, scalability, and operational resilience

Communicate clearly and proactively

Take ownership of outcomes, not just tasksSenior Software Engineer - Job Description4

Balance pragmatism with craftsmanship

Care about the product and customer impact behind the work

What Success Looks Like

Over time, successful Senior Engineers at SourceWhale:

Become trusted owners of complex systems and delivery areas

Improve engineering quality across the wider stream, not just their own

work

Lead complex technical initiatives involving multiple engineers

Raise standards through mentoring, reviews, and technical leadership

Make sound technical trade-offs that improve both delivery and long-term

maintainability

Build trust with stakeholders through clear communication and predictable

delivery

Reduce operational risk through thoughtful design and engineering

discipline

Growth Path

This role can evolve in multiple directions depending on your strengths and

interests, including:

Principal Engineer — deep technical expertise and cross-stream technical

standards

Systems Architect — broader architectural ownership and systems

strategy

Technical Leadership — stream leadership, people development, and

operational stewardship

Our Engineering Principles

These principles guide how we work and grow together:

Teamwork: We collaborate openly, communicate honestly, and celebrate

shared success.

Product quality: We take pride in delivering robust, high-impact solutions

for our users.

Peer leadership: We foster continuous learning, feedback, and

accountability.

Our teams focus on sustained product outcomes, not one-off projects. We

deliver continuous value, evolve based on feedback, minimise dependencies,

and operate with transparency and collective responsibility.

Benefits

25 days annual leave (plus public holidays)

MacBook + any additional tech or software you need

Flexible working arrangements

Private Health, Dental, and Vision Insurance through Aviva

Income Protection Insurance

Extended mental health cover and Employee Assistance Programme

Compassionate leave policy

Private pension contributions Royal London)

Monthly company social events

Regular in-person hackathons