Staff Software Engineer

Who are we? Look at the latest headlines and you will see something Ki insures. Think space shuttles, world tours, wind farms, and even footballers’ legs. Ki’s mission is simple: Digitally disrupt and revolutionise a 335-year-old market. Working with Google and UCL, Ki has created a platform that uses algorithms, machine learning and large language models to give insurance brokers quotes in seconds, rather than days. Ki is proudly the biggest global algorithmic insurance carrier and the fastest growing syndicate in the Lloyd's of London market, being the first ever to make $100m in profit in 3 years. Ki’s teams have varied backgrounds and work together in an agile, cross-functional way to build the very best experience for its customers. Ki has big ambitions but needs more excellent minds to challenge the status quo and help it reach new horizons.

Where you come in? Our broker platform is the core technology crucial to Ki's success – allowing us to evolve underwriting intelligently and unlock massive scale. We're a multi-disciplined team, bringing together expertise in software and data engineering, full stack development, platform operations, algorithm research, and data science. Our squads focus on delivering high-impact features – we favour a highly iterative, analytical approach. We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join our Engineering team. You will provide technical leadership for both delivery squads and the wider engineering organisation. Along with our engineering leadership, you’ll champion engineering excellence and high standards of quality through an environment of continuous improvement. You will be hands-on, directly delivering new impactful software. You will be able to propose, design, and execute initiatives independently, leading colleagues to deliver on these goals.

What you will be doing:

• Build robust and scalable software for business critical, web-based applications.
• Design, build, test, document and maintain APIs and integrations.
• Develop new functionality in our core Kotlin based services, working in multi-disciplinary teams.
• Ensure quality control using industry standard techniques such as automated testing, pairing, and code review.
• Work with the Product team to understand end-user requirements and translate them into an effective technical solution.
• Document technical design and analysis work.
• Assess current system architecture and identify opportunities for growth and improvement.
• Build mock-ups or prototypes to explore and troubleshoot new initiatives.
• Explore new ideas and emerging technologies, develop prototypes quickly.
• Uphold and advance the wider engineering team’s principles and ways of working.
• Promote a culture of continuous improvement, positively influence current ways of working, leading by example.
• Serve as a domain expert in many of Ki’s core technologies.
• Mentor and coach colleagues in both engineering and business domain subjects towards building their own abilities and skills.
• Opinionated regarding system architecture, able to suggest improvements and changes required to support delivery of new functionality, where required.

What to expect during the recruitment process:

1. Initial recruiter screening call
2. Interview with hiring manager
3. Technical Interview (this may vary depending on the role)
4. Values Interview

Ki Values:

• Know Your Customer: Put yourself in their shoes. Understand and balance the different needs of our customers, acting with integrity and empathy to create something excellent.
• Grow Together: Empower each other to succeed. Recognise the work of our teams, while celebrating individual success. Embrace diverse perspectives so we can develop and grow together.
• Be Courageous: Think big, push boundaries. Don’t be afraid to fail because that’s how we learn. Test, adapt, improve - always strive to be better.

Our culture: At Ki, we are committed to creating an inclusive environment where every colleague is valued and respected for who they are and can do the best work of their careers. Inclusion is a critical foundation of our business and people strategies and supports our vision of becoming a market-leading, digital and data-led specialty insurance business. An inclusive workplace fuels innovation because creativity thrives when everyone feels valued, respected, and supported to drive it. So, no matter who you are, where you’re from, how you think, or who you love, we believe you should be you. If this sounds like a role and a culture that appeals to you, apply now!

Experience as a senior level engineer working across a modern web stack.

Strong software engineering principles (SOLID, DRY, ER modelling).

Professional experience with a server-side language, ideally JVM based.

Comfortable working with cloud infrastructure, infrastructure as code, familiar with standard logging and monitoring tools used to investigate issues.

Experience with continuous integration, or ideally, continuous delivery.

Strong familiarity with build tools (e.g. Maven) and version control tools (e.g. Git/Github).

Experience working in agile teams, following Scrum or Kanban, participating in regular ceremonies including stand-ups, planning, and retrospectives.

Experience using project management and workflow tools (e.g. Jira).

Previous experience of software development in the financial markets, Fintech or Insurtech is preferable.

You’ll get a highly competitive remuneration and benefits package. This is kept under constant review to make sure it stays relevant. We understand the power of saying thank you and take time to acknowledge and reward extraordinary effort by teams or individuals.