At a Glance
- Tasks: Develop and enhance a platform for urban biodiversity and resilience.
- Company: Join Kew Reach, a pioneering venture with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.
- Benefits: Enjoy competitive salary, flexible remote work, and opportunities for professional growth.
- Other info: Be part of a dynamic team focused on sustainability and innovation.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on nature restoration while working with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: Strong TypeScript skills and AWS experience required.
The predicted salary is between 56700 - 69300 £ per year.
Company: Kew Reach
Product: Palette; an urban planning tool for biodiversity and resilience gain
Location: UK-based · remote-first or hybrid options available (where remote first, occasional London / team days are required)
Type: Full-time · permanent
Reports to: CEO
Salary: Competitive, dependent on experience
About Kew Reach
A better future for people and planet, made possible through the power of a thriving and resilient natural world. Launched in 2024, Kew Reach is a joint venture with the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, set up to deliver nature-based solutions to restore ecosystems in any setting. We accelerate nature-positive action at scale, grounded in scientific expertise, shaped by creative thinking, and sustained through collaboration.
What We Do
We offer an end-to-end service guided by the Kew Method, spanning baseline assessment, climate-informed design and delivery, species sourcing, long-term monitoring and capacity building, ensuring every project is credible, resilient and delivers measurable nature gain.
This spans three Labs: the City Lab, bringing climate-resilient planting and green infrastructure into city and development environments; the Restoration Lab, turning degraded land into resilient, biodiverse ecosystems; and the Infrastructure Lab, delivering nature-based solutions for major capital projects.
Introducing Palette
Our platform, Palette, brings that same scientific confidence to decisions about planting, biodiversity and habitat. Built around our core climate-resilient tree species-selection tools, we're expanding its capabilities to cover pollinator and habitat analysis, combined biodiversity planning, and tools designed for local-authority use.
The role
You will be the engineer who owns the health of the platform and its growth: its security posture, its reliability and deployment pipeline, the day-to-day usability of the application, and the new client-facing capabilities we build in the future. As those capabilities grow, you'll mature the platform from a single application into a suite of tools that you manage centrally. You'll work alongside our Senior Data Scientist and the CEO.
This is a founding platform-engineer role: broad, high-ownership, and, for now, the sole engineer on the platform side. You'll turn client needs and our domain expertise into features, not just keep the lights on. It suits someone who wants the autonomy and scope of an early hire and is comfortable being the person the platform depends on.
The immediate priority is honest: the migration to our current AWS architecture was largely AI-assisted. The architecture is sound and well-documented, but there is a known, already-scoped list of hardening, reliability and polish work to reach a confident commercial launch.
What you'll own
- Product & platform evolution: Grow the platform beyond its first study - turning client needs and our scientific domain expertise into features that help users understand their sites and act on that understanding.
- Security & compliance: Take our launch security checklist from "mostly coded" to "verified and deployed” WAF rollout, harden the authentication and session model, drive secret hygiene, and support UK data-residency requirements.
- Reliability & operations: Own the AWS infrastructure and improve observability, own the deploy pipeline and make releases boring.
- Usability & frontend quality: Improve the end-user experience and strengthen input validation, error handling and rate limiting across the API.
- Engineering practice: Uphold our test discipline and keep the architecture documented.
Where we are today
You'd be walking into a platform that is already well past prototype: Live product with ~320 species scored across 12 UK regions. Stack includes React, Tailwind, Express, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, and AWS services.
Known open work includes deploying the WAF, adding CloudFront, finishing security headers, hardening sessions, and enabling CloudTrail/GuardDuty/Config.
Essential experience includes strong TypeScript skills, solid AWS experience, demonstrable application and cloud security know-how, experience running production web services, and relational databases knowledge.
Desirable experience includes familiarity with tRPC, PostGIS, multi-tenant SaaS, and frontend accessibility and performance.
This is not a data-science or modelling role - your focus is the platform and its product: security, stability, usability, and the new capabilities we grow on top.
Senior Software Engineer employer: Kew REACH
Kew Reach is an exceptional employer, offering a meaningful early-career opportunity for Sales Executives in a dynamic hybrid work environment based in Richmond, London. With a strong focus on mentorship and professional growth, employees are empowered to contribute to impactful nature-based solutions while collaborating with over 500 scientists and a global network of specialists. The company's commitment to sustainability and innovation ensures that team members are part of a mission that truly matters, fostering a culture of learning and collaboration.
StudySmarter Expert Advice🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Software Engineer
✨Join Local Tech Meetups
Get out there and mingle with fellow developers by joining local tech meetups. It’s a fantastic way to meet people who might be working at Kew REACH or know someone who does. Plus, you can pick up some trendy tech skills and trends while you're at it!
✨Contribute to Open Source Projects
Show off your coding chops by jumping into open-source projects. Not only does this give you practical experience, but it also gets you noticed in the dev community. You'll create a killer portfolio that speaks volumes about your skills to Kew REACH.
✨Tap into Online Developer Communities
Don’t underestimate the power of online developer communities like GitHub, Stack Overflow, and even Reddit. Participate in discussions, share your projects, and build your visibility. We can often find opportunities through these channels that can lead to a full-time gig at companies like Kew REACH.
✨Explore Job Boards Specifically for Tech Roles
Keep your eyes peeled on job boards that focus on tech roles. Sites like TechCareers or Stack Overflow Jobs can often have listings for companies like Kew REACH that might not show up on broader job sites. Make it a habit to check these regularly, and don’t hesitate to apply directly through our website!
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Software Engineer
Some tips for your application 🫡
Show off your coding skills:When applying for a software engineering role, it's super important to showcase your coding skills. Make sure your CV includes your tech stack, any relevant programming languages you’re comfortable with, and examples of projects you've worked on. If you have a GitHub profile, link it up! We love to see code in action.
Tailor your portfolio:For a full-time role, we’d expect to see some solid examples of your work in your portfolio. Make sure to include at least two or three projects that highlight your problem-solving skills and your ability to work with different technologies. Focus on the projects that are most relevant to the position at Kew REACH.
Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Kew REACH and how your skills align with the role. Show us your passion for software development. We dig enthusiastic candidates who understand the value of collaboration and continuous learning!
Be clear and concise:When it comes to writing your CV and cover letter, clarity is key. Avoid jargon that could confuse us and stick to simple, direct language. Highlight your achievements with quantifiable results where possible, and keep everything easy to read. A well-organised application goes a long way!
How to prepare for a job interview at Kew REACH
✨Brush Up on Your Coding Skills
For a full-time software engineering role, it's crucial that we stay sharp with our coding abilities. Expect technical questions that might involve solving problems on the spot or discussing algorithms. Practise on platforms like LeetCode or HackerRank to get comfortable with the types of questions that often come up.
✨Know Your Tools and Frameworks
Make sure we’re well-acquainted with the tools and technologies listed in the job description. Familiarise ourselves with any specific frameworks or programming languages mentioned. If Kew REACH uses React or Node.js, for instance, be ready to discuss how we’ve used them in previous projects or coursework.
✨Showcase Your Projects
Bring along a portfolio that highlights our best work. This could be code samples, GitHub repositories, or any side projects we’ve built. Make sure we can talk through our thought process for each project, especially the challenges we faced and how we solved them—this shows our problem-solving skills in action.
✨Prepare for Behavioural Questions
While technical skills are key, full-time positions also require cultural fit. Be ready to discuss our previous experiences and how we handle teamwork, conflict, and deadlines. Brush up on the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Result—to clearly articulate our past experiences when discussing how we've contributed to a team.
