Senior Software Engineer

This is an opportunity to join IRIS Software Group as we transform into an AI-first company delivering cloud-native solutions that impact millions of lives globally. IRIS produces an integrated suite of mission-critical software applications spanning accountancy, HR, payroll, education, and business operations. You will be working as part of an Agile team to deliver innovative solutions to user stories and requirements, contributing to our modernisation journey that serves over 100,000 customers across 135 countries. The role is challenging and dynamic, with key deadlines to be met as we accelerate our cloud transformation and implement next-generation technologies. You’ll need to embrace continuous learning and bring a focused attitude to tasks that directly enable businesses, schools, and organisations to work smarter and more efficiently. You will be involved in a variety of cutting-edge technical solutions, ranging from the latest .NET technologies using C# to various Front End Web JS Frameworks, all while contributing to our AI-powered platform evolution. You will be supported in your career growth by a highly experienced team, comprehensive learning opportunities, and a vibrant technical community committed to creating exceptional solutions that make a real difference in how our customers operate and succeed.

As a Senior Software Engineer, you will be a technical leader within your team, responsible for delivering complex full-stack web applications, serving millions of users, driving technical excellence, and mentoring other engineers. You'll be expected to bring commercial awareness to every technical decision, understanding that the best solution is the one that delivers value to customers and the business, not just the most elegant one. You will work hands-on with cutting-edge UI frameworks, .NET Core backends, and cloud-native technologies while contributing to architectural decisions and ensuring high-quality software delivery across containerised, scalable web products.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and deliver complex, scalable systems (multi-service integrations, high-traffic APIs, data processing pipelines) that anticipate edge cases, scalability issues, and long-term maintainability.
• Own large features or entire components across their complete lifecycle from conception to production support.
• Make commercially aware technical decisions by weighing engineering trade-offs in the context of business commitments, delivery timelines, and customer impact, not just technical purity.
• Lead technical discussions and influence architecture decisions within team systems and components, with authority over component-level technical choices and escalation path to Engineering Lead for cross-team impacts.
• Drive technical excellence by establishing architectural patterns, standards, and best practices that others can follow.
• Ensure knowledge transfer and documentation for owned systems to enable team continuity.

Collaboration & Communication

• Lead with AI-first practices by actively driving AI-led ways of working within the team, using tools such as Cursor, Copilot, and Claude Code as a core part of how you design, build, and ship, while bringing others along on that journey.
• Lead story refinement sessions with Product Owners, providing technical expertise for estimation and risk assessment.
• Partner with cross-functional teams (product, design, QA) to deliver comprehensive solutions that meet business objectives.
• Influence technology choices based on deep technical understanding and business context.
• Lead team Agile ceremony facilitation to drive continuous process improvements, and establish team practices that enhance delivery predictability.
• Proactively identify and inspire resolution of technical debt and system improvements.

Quality & Standards

• Champion comprehensive quality practices including TDD/BDD standards, automated testing strategies, and shift-left testing.
• Lead security implementation across complex features, establish security practices and conduct comprehensive security reviews.
• Establish development tooling and practices used consistently within the team.
• Lead troubleshooting efforts for complex software issues and production incidents.
• Establish documentation standards for complex team systems and drive knowledge transfer practices across team deliverables.

Growth & Development

• Mentor junior and mid-level engineers actively to raise team capability and technical standards.
• Lead team code review standards establishment, conduct complex feature reviews, and drive quality improvements across team deliverables.
• Drive continuous improvement and champion responsible AI adoption with team governance practices.

Required Experience & Skills

Technical Skills

• Frontend Development: Strong proficiency with modern UI frameworks (e.g. Angular, React, Vue.js, Blazor) including performance optimisation and component architecture OR working knowledge with focus on backend specialisation.
• Backend Development: Strong proficiency with .NET Core, C#, ASP.NET Core Web APIs, REST, application architectures, and distributed systems.
• Database Systems and Data Architecture: Strong knowledge of SQL, NoSQL and data architecture decisions.
• AI-Assisted Software Engineering: Actively engaged in AI-first ways of working by showing a genuine shift in how you approach design, development, and problem-solving with AI as a core part of the workflow, not just a productivity add-on.
• Experienced integrating AI tools (Cursor, Copilot, Devin, Claude Code, etc.) into engineering practices to accelerate design, development, testing and debugging, using them critically and responsibly to improve quality, productivity and decision-making.
• Observability: Advanced DataDog, Application Insights or Amazon CloudWatch implementation with performance tuning and cost optimisation.
• Infrastructure as Code: Infrastructure as Code with either Terraform, Bicep, ARM Templates or AWS CloudFormation/CDK.
• CI/CD Design: Design comprehensive CI/CD architectures for team deliverables, establish deployment strategies, and optimise pipeline performance for team efficiency.
• Cloud Architecture: Strong proficiency in SaaS using Azure (Functions, Queue, Blob Storage, VMs, etc) or AWS (Lambda, SQS/SNS, EC2, etc.) services, infrastructure design, and performance tuning.
• Container Orchestration: Strong containerisation (e.g. Docker) or Kubernetes (AKS/EKS) experience with production-scale deployments.
• Architecture Expertise: Expertise in clean architecture principles, SOLID design patterns, and domain-driven design.
• Quality & Testing: Drive TDD/BDD adoption in team testing strategy and quality governance, and implement comprehensive automated testing with continuous improvement.
• Scalable Solutions: Experience with highly scalable solutions and internet-facing traffic levels.
• Performance & Scalability: Profiling and benchmarking applications.
• Application Security: Confident vulnerability management, thread modelling and tracking.
• Production Support: Knowledge of observability and production support practices. Proficient in debugging complex issues, performance optimization, and production troubleshooting.

Experience Requirements

• 5-7 years of professional software development experience.
• Proven ability in delivering complex, multi-system solutions.
• Experience working with highly scalable, internet-facing solutions serving millions of users.
• Demonstrated technical leadership through architecture decisions, technical mentoring, and cross-team collaboration.
• Track record of driving technical excellence, establishing standards, and influencing technology choices.
• Active mentoring experience with junior and mid-level engineers.
• Experience leading technical initiatives that span multiple sprints or quarters.

Soft Skills

• Commercially aware and outcome-oriented — understands that engineering decisions exist within a business context, and prioritises delivery and customer value over technical perfection.
• Demonstrates resilience and adaptability in the face of changing priorities or commercial commitments — able to pivot without losing quality or motivation.
• Strong analysis and problem-solving skills for troubleshooting technical issues.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills with ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.
• Technical leadership and influencing skills without formal authority.
• Ability to utilise technical skills to develop and coach others through mentoring and knowledge sharing.
• Collaborative approach and ability to work as part of wider Engineering, Platform and Quality teams.
• Conflict resolution skills for technical disagreements and cross-team coordination.
• Genuinely curious and AI-forward by continuously evolving how you work, with AI tooling as a natural part of your day-to-day, not an afterthought.

Desirable Skills

• Experience working with regulated or complex domains (finance, health, govtech) with audit requirements.
• Experience designing high-quality AI interactions through effective prompt engineering, efficient token usage, and optimisation techniques, combined with practical use of the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to integrate AI systems with tools and services for richer, automated workflows.
• Expertise with advanced monitoring and APM strategies using Datadog, including custom dashboards and alerting (or similar observability platform).
• Expertise with modern UI architecture patterns (micro-frontends, SSR/SSG).
• Knowledge of security best practices and compliance requirements (OAuth2, OIDC, RBAC).
• Experience with event-driven architectures.
• Exposure to DevOps processes and automation ensuring end-to-end responsibility of features.
• Advanced cloud certifications in Azure or AWS.