Senior Software Engineer — Lead & Scale Ruby on Rails

We’re really lucky to have an Engineering team spread across three jurisdictions working on the Hnry product. While that gives us the opportunity to hire great people globally, we’re always keen to hear from those interested in joining our founding team in London. We’re really proud of the team we’ve built so far, and while we’re not actively hiring into the team right now, we’re always keen to connect with great engineers who are interested in what we’re doing - even if that conversation is for a little further down the track.

As part of the team, you’d play a key role in building a polished experience for our customers, while helping evolve the systems that power the business behind the scenes. You’ll work collaboratively across Product, Customer Operations, and Engineering to bring new features to life - from early concept through to release. If this sounds like something you’d be keen to be part of (now or in the future), we’d love to hear from you.

• Lead the identification and resolution of complex problems by actively engaging with customers and stakeholders across the business, driving innovative solutions.
• Champion best practices in software development, setting a high standard for robustness, reliability, and performance while guiding the team to follow these practices.
• Take ownership of delivering high-impact features from concept to production release, including ongoing performance monitoring and optimisation.
• Ensure comprehensive test coverage for all work delivered and drive improvements in test practices across the existing codebase.
• Conduct in-depth code reviews, offering constructive feedback and sharing expertise to elevate the team’s technical capabilities.
• Architect scalable, maintainable solutions for new features, clearly communicating design decisions and collaborating with the team to gather feedback.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to align engineering efforts with broader business goals.
• Act as a mentor and technical leader, providing guidance, support, and development opportunities for junior and intermediate engineers.

Have at least four years experience working as a Software Developer. Have exceptional communication and collaboration skills - we work together and succeed as a team. Demonstrate strong problem solving abilities, breaking down complex challenges into actionable solutions while considering long-term maintainability. Take proactive ownership of system performance, monitoring key metrics, identifying potential risks, and implementing effective solutions. Approach challenges with curiosity, critical thinking, and a deep empathy for the end user, ensuring changes deliver meaningful impact. Have significant experience with automated testing, including designing and implementing robust testing strategies to maintain code quality. Bring a passion for technical and product design discussions, contributing innovative ideas and driving best practices across the team. Have full working rights in New Zealand.

Bonus points for the following:

• Experience building large scale systems.
• Experience being self-employed (freelancing, contracting etc) in any industry/profession.
• Experience with Ruby on Rails.

How we work: We follow agile practices, delivering improvements iteratively in small chunks. We track the impact of our work and measure ourselves on results, not the amount of code written. We’re growing fast, and are focused on building a well designed, scalable & robust platform. In some areas of the work (e.g. payment processing) there is very little margin for error. Our technology platform is built in Ruby on Rails, and we also use a bunch of AWS services (via Terraform), Postgres, Docker, and a little bit of React. We have automated tests, continuous deployment, and release to production multiple times per day. We review each others code, and set aside time for hacking on experimental features, refactoring and/or learning new things. We work hard and finish on time, no crazy hours.

Salary banding: £65,250- £74,000 per annum. At Hnry, we operate a policy of pay parity across our organisation to ensure that all Hnry staff are fairly and equally compensated based on their contributions and experience. The salary for this role will be determined based on the applicant’s experience.