Senior Software Engineer

Senior Software Engineer

Full-Time 58500 - 71500 £ / year (est.) Home office (partial)
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At a Glance

  • Tasks: Shape M&S's campaign personalisation and paid media platforms with innovative engineering.
  • Company: Join M&S, a dynamic leader in retail innovation and customer experience.
  • Benefits: Enjoy 20% discount, competitive holidays, bonuses, and wellbeing support.
  • Other info: Hybrid work model with excellent career growth opportunities.
  • Why this job: Make a real impact on millions of customers through cutting-edge technology.
  • Qualifications: Strong Python skills and experience in performance marketing or personalisation products.

The predicted salary is between 58500 - 71500 £ per year.

We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to play a pivotal role in shaping and evolving M&S's campaign personalisation and paid media platforms.

This team provides the intelligent services that power personalised, performance-driven campaigns across web, mobile, and paid channels — helping millions of customers see the right message, in the right place, at the right moment, while making every pound of media spend work harder.

Your "customers" are marketing and media teams, engineers, data scientists, and ultimately millions of M&S customers.

Your mission is to improve the relevance, efficiency, and measurable return of paid media and personalised campaigns through robust engineering, intelligent optimisation, and production-ready systems.

This is a role for an engineer who is excited by performance marketing, personalisation at scale, and building customer-facing products that move commercial metrics.

You will help drive the next phase of growth for M&S's paid media and personalisation stack as it continues to evolve across our digital channels.

Due to high interest, this role may close earlier than advertised. We recommend applying as soon as possible.

About the Team

We’re building the personalisation Campaign and Paid Media engineering platform that underpins every customer touchpoint, with a true omnichannel mindset across web, app, email, push and paid social.

This is a high-ownership, high-visibility Software Engineering role for an engineer who wants to shape how millions of people discover and experience M&S, through intelligent systems that acquire and engage customers and support Marketing activity.

You will join the team responsible for the platforms behind M&S's paid media and personalisation — live, customer-facing systems that combine audience intelligence with automated campaign delivery to drive relevance and return on ad spend.

What You'll Do

Your key accountabilities will include

Build and evolve paid media and personalisation services using Python, supporting highly scalable, customer-facing campaign delivery.

  • Drive continuous improvement of paid media performance through structured experimentation, A/B testing, and data-driven insights.
  • Build integrations with paid media platforms (paid search, paid social, programmatic/DSPs) to automate audience activation, bidding, and budget management.
  • Work with attribution and measurement systems, identifying opportunities to improve spend efficiency and customer outcomes.
  • Integrate campaign and personalisation services into broader digital platforms, APIs, martech, and adtech ecosystems.

Who You Are

A strong software engineer with extensive Python experience delivering production-grade applications and services.

  • Knowledge of building performance marketing or personalisation products paid media platforms, bidding/budget optimisation, or customer-facing campaign systems.
  • Hands-on experience designing and implementing measurement, attribution, or experimentation frameworks.
  • Comfortable working with large-scale data and using it to drive continuous improvement in commercial metrics.
  • Strong understanding of how to measure marketing and media performance and translate it into engineering outcomes.
  • Comfortable taking ambiguous, fast-moving marketing challenges and translating them into practical, scalable solutions.
  • What’s in it for you

Being a part of M&S is exactly that – playing your part to bring the magic of M&S to our customers every day.

We’re an inclusive, dynamic, exciting, and ever evolving business built on doing the right thing and bringing exceptional quality, value, service to every customer, whenever, wherever and however they want to shop with us.

Here are some of the benefits we offer that make working for M&S just that little bit more special

After completing your probationary period, you’ll receive 20% colleague discount across all M&S products and many of our third-party brands for you and a member of your household.

  • Competitive holiday entitlement with the potential to buy extra holiday days!
  • Discretionary bonus schemes awarded based on how you achieve your personal objectives and our performance as a business.
  • A generous Defined Contribution Pension Scheme and Life Assurance.
  • A dedicated welcome to our teams with a tailored induction and a wide range of training programmes to develop your skills.
  • Amazing perks and discounts via our M&S Choices portal to maximise your financial and personal wellbeing.
  • Leading parental, adoption and neonatal policies, providing support and flexibility for your family.
  • Access to a fantastic range of wellbeing support for all colleagues including access to our 24/7 Virtual GP and PAM Assist to support you and your family.
  • A charity volunteer day to support a charity or cause you're passionate about through a dedicated day away from work.
  • Everyone’s Welcome

We are ambitious about the future of retail.

We’re disrupting, innovating, and leading the industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era.

We’re transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet.

Marks & Spencer strives to be an inclusive organisation, trusted and admired by our colleagues, customers, and suppliers.

We are committed to building diverse and representative teams, where everyone can bring their whole selves to work and be at their best. We support each other and win together.

If you’d benefit from any support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know when completing your application.

Location

  • London (Hybrid – 1 day per week in the office)
  • #J-18808-Ljbffr

Senior Software Engineer employer: Marks & Spencer Plc

Marks & Spencer Plc is an excellent employer, offering a vibrant work culture that fosters innovation and collaboration in the heart of Salford. Employees benefit from a competitive package, extensive professional development opportunities, and the chance to lead cutting-edge HR technology initiatives, making it a rewarding place for those looking to make a meaningful impact in their careers.

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Contact Details:

Marks & Spencer Plc Recruitment Team

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 Marks & Spencer Plc 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 Marks & Spencer Plc.

Tap into Online Developer Communities

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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 Marks & Spencer Plc 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

Python
Performance Marketing
Personalisation Products
Bidding Optimisation
Budget Management
A/B Testing
Data-Driven Insights

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 Marks & Spencer Plc.

Craft a killer cover letter:Your cover letter is your chance to stand out—make it personal! Explain why you want to work at Marks & Spencer Plc 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 Marks & Spencer Plc

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 Marks & Spencer Plc 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.