Lead Software Engineer

Join to apply for the Lead Software Engineer role at Aker Systems. Aker Systems was founded in 2017 by a team of experienced technology professionals who recognised an opportunity to provide highly secure enterprise data platforms to large organisations. We build and operate ground‑breaking, ultra‑secure, high‑performance, cloud‑based data infrastructure for the enterprise. Our proprietary technology solutions drive performance and reduce cost while helping our clients improve the management and sharing of data across their organisations.

In 2024, Aker Systems won the Breakthrough Culture Awards highlighting growth companies putting culture first. In 2020 we were recognised as a ‘One to Watch’ on the Sunday Times Tech Track and at the Thames Valley Tech Awards 2020, winning amongst others the Thames Valley Tech Company of the Year, Emerging Tech Company and High Growth Tech Business categories. We encourage people of all backgrounds and identities to apply. We are committed to maintaining an inclusive, supportive place for you to do your very best work.

Duties & Responsibilities

A UK Government Security Check (SC) clearance is required for this role. If you don’t hold SC clearance, we will support you to apply assuming you have lived and worked in the UK for a minimum of five years. As a Software Engineer, you will help lead the development of backend services for a government client leveraging the latest commercial and open‑source technologies. This involves designing, developing, documenting and deploying backend services with a focus on high availability, low latency and scalability.

• Design, develop, document and deploy new or enhanced features to our backend services that meet functional/non‑functional business requirements.
• Actively participate in the team’s elaboration and estimation of user stories.
• Build frequent, small releases to maintain the team’s momentum.
• Collaborate closely with other engineers in our cross‑functional feature teams; ensuring that others can cover for you, and that you can cover for them.
• Build, optimise and operate our Continuous Deployment pipelines.
• Maintain operational responsibility for the services that your team owns.

Core Competencies

The successful candidate will have a Bachelor’s degree or greater in Computer Science or a related field. An equivalent of at least five years of working experience in a developer capacity is also acceptable for this position.

• Java programming experience as the core language, including Spring Boot.
• Fluent in writing Java code.
• Experience with Kafka or a similar platform.
• Experience with Scala and Spark.
• Integrating with backing services such as PostgreSQL, Redis or S3.
• Good engineering practices including continuous delivery, clean code, documentation, defensive programming, automated testing and code reviews.
• Working in Agile development and/or DevOps teams.
• Using GitHub/GitLab for source control.
• Test‑Driven Development with appropriate tools and frameworks.
• Experience in Big Data technologies.
• Experience in public cloud services such as AWS.

Equal Opportunities

Aker Systems fosters a diverse environment that encourages openness in its communications and is committed to providing equal employment opportunity for all people regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, marital status, national origin, citizenship status, disability, veteran status or other personal characteristics. We embrace differences of opinion and diversity because they help challenge us and find new groundbreaking technical solutions. In return, we offer a competitive salary, 25 days holiday plus bank holidays, company‑paid medical insurance and life assurance, pension scheme, annual training allowance, wellbeing allowance, virtual GP, Employee Assistance Plan and more.