Senior Software Engineer - UltraGrid in London

Hypervolt is at the forefront of the electric vehicle charging revolution, dedicated to providing innovative and reliable EV charging solutions. We launched in 2021 with the bold ambition to transform the EV charging space through a relentless focus on the customer experience, great software, and beautifully designed British hardware. In a short timeframe, we became Trustpilot's highest rated EV charging manufacturer in the industry. We are proud to have been named the third fastest growing company in the UK, as part of the Deloitte Fast 50, and 6th fastest growing company in EMEA, as part of the Deloitte Fast 500. Additionally, Hypervolt was voted DrivingElectric’s Home EV Charger of the Year 2023 & 2024, a testament to our focus on innovation and democratising EV ownership.

UltraGrid is the core engine behind Hypervolt's applications. It features a soft real-time mechanism for controlling and monitoring distributed energy assets, streaming over 100,000 events per day from each connected node on the grid—all at incredibly low operating costs. Designed for sub-second, multi-gigawatt grid-balancing, UltraGrid is built to be a critical component of a nation's energy security, boasting sub-50ms P95 and intra-system transit times with a P99 of under 6 milliseconds. Its core is deeply rooted in performance engineering: every thread, every byte allocated, and every shred of memory not garbage collected on time is accounted for. This unique programming experience minimizes reliance on open source frameworks, favoring first-principles development to achieve maximum performance.

This is an excellent opportunity for god-tier engineers to join a very experienced software team, building mission-critical infrastructure for a growing company. You will be working on streaming, networking, storage, and other facets of the system, with an extreme focus on cost and performance.

Requirements

• Extensive Experience & Technical Mastery: 10+ years of professional software development experience, with a strong focus on architecting, optimizing, and delivering performance-critical systems. Deep expertise in Java, Scala and the JDK, leveraging the Java ecosystem for high-performance applications. Proficiency in Rust is a bonus. Experience with NixOS is considered a huge plus.
• Performance Engineering Excellence: Proven ability to diagnose, profile, and optimize complex systems using advanced performance analysis tools and methodologies. Demonstrated experience in tuning multi-threaded and parallel computing environments, managing concurrency, and applying lock-free designs for efficient resource utilization. Familiarity with performance engineering technologies and low-cost always on profiling, metrics and observability. Extensive understanding of foundational computer science principles, data structures, and algorithms. Extensive understanding of networking and fundamental building blocks of the Internet. Firm grasp of distributed consensus algorithms and their practical applications in building scalable, reliable systems.
• Innovative Problem Solving & Mentorship: Exceptional analytical skills to identify and resolve intricate performance bottlenecks in production-level systems. Experience driving technical excellence and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Excellent communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders. Proven success collaborating with cross-functional teams, including close partnerships with SREs and automation specialists in fast-paced, dynamic environments.
• Educational Background: A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field or equivalent industry experience. Advanced degrees or relevant certifications are a plus. A PhD in computer science or an interest in performance engineering and distributed consensus algorithms is a big bonus.

Bonus Qualifications

• Previous experience contributing to a mainstream Apache project, preferably involving the JDK.
• Prior work in a performance engineering environment at leading tech companies like Netflix or Twitter.
• Strong experience working with resource right-sizing and developing deeply cost-optimized code.
• Previous experience working on a core database engine, such as building a database from the ground up.
• You enjoy reading and writing academic computer science papers and have a list of favourites if queried by the team.
• You're not worried about AI code completion taking your job anytime soon.

Competitive Compensation: We will pay you. A sum of money. Every month. You'll really like it.

Stock options: Everyone says this. But we reached "Series D levels" with less than $10M in total funding. And boy, are we profitable. The stock is quite something. You can finally lock down that 4-bed in Palo Alto if it goes well.

Comprehensive Coverage: Health, dental, and vision plans, plus wellness and mental health support.

Work-Life Flexibility: Somewhat. You can work remotely, or you can come to the office. The expected output is very high. We like consistency and a great team dynamic. We do overtime occasionally, but it's because it's so fun to ship one feature after the next- never mandated.

Additional Perks: We'll buy you a laptop. Whichever one you want. It can have your custom Arch Linux distro on it. We would expect nothing less of you. And yes, of course, IT supports that.

Innovative Environment: A culture like no other. Work with peers and people who truly value exceptionally good software. What we aim to do is not always going to be easy, and problem-solving, no matter how big or small, is essential if we are going to achieve our mission. Whether it be a technical challenge you are struggling to unblock, a new client you are trying to win or a logistical puzzle you need to solve, the only way we will grow as a company and as individuals is by persistently working things through to a solution. Success seldom comes from the first attempt, but it almost always comes from the 1000th, and the difference between success and failure often isn’t intelligence or the aha moment or the brilliant idea: it’s having the perseverance to continue pushing and never giving in to failure.

Be accountable: We operate in a fast-paced, highly collaborative and increasingly autonomous environment at Hypervolt. We are on the journey from a scrappy startup to a market leader, but no matter how big the company gets, treat it as your own. Be accountable for its progress, and look after it as you would your creation. If you know things can be improved, articulate them, say them, and don’t go along in the silence of knowing we could have done better. If we make a mistake, find a way to say it. There’s no value in keeping it to yourself; we will succeed or fail together.

The 'Ello Sir Ethos: We should always strive to treat people how they wish to be treated and remember the voting power of customers. They are the true bosses and the actual employers—the market.

Dare to dream: Every technological advancement we use today was once a crazy dream that a few persistent pioneers truly believed. “Most things have to be seen to be believed, but some things have to be believed to be seen!” – Steve Jobs, on building the Apple Mac, the best-selling computer of all time. Stay hungry; stay foolish. The hunger and ambition for continuous success are the orbital solar beam-powered reactor at the core of our success, and our ability to stay foolish and humble and continue to let ourselves be educated by our market will help us reach the full potential of our ambition. Only through the most selfless dedication to our dreams will we achieve the most selfish successes.

True Greatness is Blind: Great ideas and execution can come from anyone and anywhere at any time.