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For Companies At a Glance
- Tasks: Build and maintain the Loyalty platform, ensuring secure and high-performance customer interactions.
- Company: Join M&S, a historic brand transforming into a digital-first organisation.
- Benefits: Enjoy a 20% discount, competitive holidays, and tailored development support.
- Other info: Be part of a diverse team committed to innovation and excellence.
- Why this job: Make a real impact on millions of customers while working with cutting-edge technology.
- Qualifications: Experience in distributed systems and familiarity with JVM-based languages.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
As part of the M&S Software Engineering team, you'll be joining a well-loved historic brand, working on solutions that serve millions of loyal customers and thousands of colleagues! With ethical values that run right through the company's core and technology leaders that truly understand software engineers and engineering, it's an exciting time as we're redefining ourselves into a digital first and engineering led organisation, with the quality of our engineering team being a key differentiator.
As a Senior Software Engineer, your expertise will help us on this journey - creating customer facing capabilities that are robust, scalable, observable, and grounded in best in class engineering practice. The M&S Loyalty team is looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our dynamic, high impact engineering group. You will provide technical expertise, ship thoughtful solutions, and operate with excellence. Creative, curious, and fearless, you will be an integral part of our empowered, self managing engineering team, pushing the boundaries of our Sparks loyalty experiences and underpinning systems.
Our team owns the Loyalty Platform - services that underpin the customer journeys and functional capabilities used across the Sparks ecosystem. We enable product teams to ship faster, safer, and with higher quality by providing a worldclass customer and developer experience foundation. In this role, you will help us drive our ambition to build a best in class software engineering team, culture, and environment. Join our community of engineers to build a modern digital ecosystem, improve the experience for millions of customers, and do the best work of your career.
What you'll do
- Build, evolve, and maintain Loyalty platform services, ensuring they enable secure, scalable, and high-performance interactions for customers across Sparks journeys.
- Take end-to-end ownership of features – from design and development through testing, deployment, documentation, and production monitoring.
- Contribute to the technical direction of the Loyalty team, shaping solutions that balance user experience, scalability, maintainability, and operational excellence.
- Write clean, maintainable, well-tested code and champion engineering best practices across the organisation.
- Work closely with engineers across multiple domains to understand needs, reduce friction, and improve customer and developer experience.
- Participate in our support rota and take shared responsibility for the reliability, observability, and operational health of Loyalty services.
- Contribute to code reviews, pair programming, tech discussions, working groups, and documentation to share knowledge and continually raise engineering standards.
- Influence and advocate for foundational engineering improvements, modernisation initiatives, and enhancements across the Sparks ecosystem.
- Mentor engineers at different levels through coaching, pairing, and structured feedback.
Who you are
- Experienced in building and scaling distributed systems.
- Familiar with JVM based languages or backend service frameworks (Micronaut is a plus but not essential).
- Hands‑on experience with DevOps, CI/CD, automated testing, and operating what you build.
- Familiarity with modern event driven technologies, particularly Kafka.
- Experienced in cloud environments (preferably Azure) and container platforms such as Kubernetes.
- Strong understanding of modern backend development, platform adjacent standards, and scalable architectural patterns.
- Pragmatic, collaborative, and comfortable working in a high autonomy team with strong engineering culture.
- Passionate about enabling other engineers and improving engineering experience at scale.
Tech stack
- Java, node.js
- JUnit, Mockito, testcontainers
- Micronaut, GraphQL, gRPC
- Azure Cloud, Kubernetes
- GitHub Actions, Dynatrace
- Snyk, Semgrep, Wiz
- Java, Spring, Micronaut
- SQL Server, MongoDB
- Redis, Ignite
What's in it for you
- 20% colleague discount on all M&S products and many third party brands.
- Competitive holiday allowance with the option to buy more.
- Discretionary performance based bonus schemes.
- Strong pension and life assurance.
- Tailored induction and continuous development support.
- Exclusive perks and savings through our M&S Choices portal.
- Market leading, family friendly policies (parental, adoption, neonatal leave).
- 24/7 wellbeing support including virtual GP and mental health services.
- One paid volunteer day per year.
Everyone's welcome. We are ambitious about the future of retail – disrupting, innovating, and leading our industry into a more conscientious, inspiring digital era. We're transforming how we work together and offering our most exciting opportunities yet. 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 work together to win together. If you feel you'd benefit from support or reasonable adjustments during any stage of the recruitment process, please let us know when completing your application so we can ensure you are set up for success.
Senior Software Engineer - Loyalty employer: MARKS&SPENCER
Contact Detail:
MARKS&SPENCER Recruiting Team
StudySmarter Expert Advice 🤫
We think this is how you could land Senior Software Engineer - Loyalty
✨Tip Number 1
Network like a pro! Reach out to current employees at M&S or in similar roles on LinkedIn. A friendly chat can give you insider info and might even lead to a referral, which is always a bonus!
✨Tip Number 2
Prepare for the interview by brushing up on your technical skills. Practice coding challenges and be ready to discuss your past projects. Show us how you've tackled problems and delivered solutions that align with M&S's values.
✨Tip Number 3
Don’t just focus on your technical skills; highlight your soft skills too! M&S values collaboration and communication, so be ready to share examples of how you've worked effectively in teams and mentored others.
✨Tip Number 4
Apply through our website! It’s the best way to ensure your application gets seen. Plus, it shows you're genuinely interested in being part of the M&S family. Let’s get you on board!
We think you need these skills to ace Senior Software Engineer - Loyalty
Some tips for your application 🫡
Tailor Your Application: Make sure to customise your CV and cover letter to highlight your experience with distributed systems and JVM-based languages. We want to see how your skills align with the role, so don’t hold back on showcasing your relevant projects!
Showcase Your Technical Skills: When detailing your experience, focus on your hands-on work with DevOps, CI/CD, and cloud environments like Azure. We love seeing specific examples of how you've implemented these technologies in past roles.
Emphasise Collaboration: Since we value teamwork, share instances where you’ve worked closely with other engineers or teams. Highlight your contributions to code reviews, pair programming, or mentoring, as this shows you’re a team player who can help elevate our engineering culture.
Apply Through Our Website: We encourage you to submit your application directly through our website. It’s the best way for us to receive your details and ensures you’re considered for the role. Plus, it’s super easy to do!
How to prepare for a job interview at MARKS&SPENCER
✨Know Your Tech Stack
Familiarise yourself with the technologies mentioned in the job description, like Java, Micronaut, and Azure. Be ready to discuss your experience with these tools and how you've used them in past projects. This shows you're not just a fit for the role but also genuinely interested in their tech.
✨Showcase Your Problem-Solving Skills
Prepare to share specific examples of how you've tackled challenges in building and scaling distributed systems. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure your answers, making it easy for the interviewers to see your thought process and impact.
✨Emphasise Collaboration
Since the role involves working closely with other engineers, highlight your teamwork experiences. Talk about how you've contributed to code reviews, pair programming, or mentoring others. This will demonstrate that you value collaboration and can thrive in a high-autonomy team.
✨Ask Insightful Questions
Prepare thoughtful questions about the team's current projects, challenges they face, or their engineering culture. This not only shows your interest in the role but also helps you gauge if the company aligns with your values and career goals.