Senior Python Developer in Leeds

Hippo is a rapidly growing digital consultancy passionate about building and delivering transformative digital solutions for a diverse range of public and private sector clients. We are recruiting for a Senior Python Developer to join our Hippo Herd. Our collaborative and agile culture empowers our teams to make a genuine impact.

About The Role

As a Senior Python Developer, you will play an important role in making Hippo the best consultancy out there. You will work as part of a multi-disciplinary team combining data, design, product, delivery, analysis and engineering to deliver bespoke digital services that create a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society.

You will act as a Senior Consultant to deliver Python Development services to our clients. Senior Python Developers are experienced practitioners who lead by example, ensuring technical excellence within squads and mentoring other members of the engineering community.

Our solutions empower our customers to build and support secure, scalable, and well-engineered systems beyond traditional boundaries that allow our customers to understand and get the most from their data and digital services. The Senior Python Developer will be a key player and implementer in this.

We are looking for candidates who are looking for growth at the Senior level; therefore, the advertised salary band represents the entry point for this level, allowing for clear progression within the role, which we are very keen to support.

Your Role In Nutshell

• Lead the production of user‑centred software, ensuring development is based on business requirements and follows best practice.
• Work collaboratively with colleagues and stakeholders to explore, design and deliver solutions to complex client problems.
• Manage software development and deployment pipelines, resolving issues and potential bottlenecks.
• Communicate and present prototypes, solutions and progress to stakeholders in a clear, concise manner.
• Build great relationships with your team and stakeholders, identifying and ensuring that challenges are overcome.
• Mentor other engineers and support consultants in their professional development.

About The Candidate

We are looking for senior level talent who thrives in a collaborative, agile environment and is eager to grow professionally.

Essential Experience

• Excellent experience in Python.
• Proven track record of delivering high‑quality, robust solutions within a delivery team.
• Experience coaching and guiding others on how to achieve an optimal solution.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, able to articulate in both technical and non‑technical terms.
• Extensive experience in the full development lifecycle delivering user‑centred digital solutions.
• Advanced full‑stack development skills using Python, HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
• Experience with JavaScript libraries and frameworks such as Node, React or Angular.
• Strong experience with containerisation (Docker, Kubernetes) and Microservices architecture.
• Expertise in RESTful API services.
• Expertise in agile methods (Scrum, Kanban, TDD).
• Proficiency in Infrastructure‑as‑Code (Terraform, CloudFormation) and public cloud environments (AWS, Azure).
• Proficient in CI/CD tools such as Jenkins or Azure DevOps.

Desirable Experience

• Previous experience working on GOV/NHS projects.
• Knowledge of Kafka or other asynchronous messaging systems.

Benefits

• Contributory Pension Scheme (Hippo 6% & Employee 2%)
• 25 days holiday plus UK public holidays
• Perkbox access for a wide range of discounts
• Critical illness cover
• Life assurance and death in service cover
• Volunteer days
• Cycle‑to‑work scheme for avid cyclists
• Salary sacrifice electric vehicle scheme
• Season ticket loans
• Financial and general wellbeing sessions
• Flexible benefits scheme with options for private health cover, private dental cover, additional company pension contributions, additional holidays (up to an extra 2 days), wellbeing contribution, charity contributions and tree planting.

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Hippo

At Hippo, we’re dedicated to creating a diverse, equitable and inclusive workplace that works for everyone. We actively encourage applications from underrepresented groups including women, ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and people with disabilities. We are committed to providing an inclusive and accessible recruitment process that reflects our workplace culture. We are a registered Disability Confident Employer, Mindful Employer, Endometriosis Friendly Employer and a member of the Armed Forces Covenant.

Hi, we’re Hippo

At Hippo, we design with empathy and build for impact. We do this by combining data‑informed evidence, human‑centred design and software engineering. We are a digital services partner who is genuinely invested in helping our clients thrive as modern organisations. Our delivery methodology is truly agile, from concept to reality, supporting innovation and continuous improvement to achieve your desired outcomes.

We firmly believe that technology should serve humanity, not the other way around. We take a human‑centred approach to everything we do because we understand that complex problems require a service design approach. This means understanding how users behave and ensuring our solutions work for them in the real world.

Our combination of data, design and engineering delivers bespoke digital services that make a positive and meaningful impact on organisations and society.

Hippo Locations

We are headquartered in Leeds and have offices across the UK in Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol. We are looking for top talent nationwide but you need to be located within reasonable travelling distance from one of our offices. Given the dynamic nature of a consulting business, you may be required to work on‑site at a Hippo office or at an in‑ or out‑of‑town client location for a number of days per week (client‑dependent), and therefore candidates will need to be open and flexible to travel and working on one of those sites at least two days per week. We offer a generous relocation support package of up to £8,000 (please ask for terms and conditions) to help make your move a smooth one.