Back End Engineer

About Netcraft

Netcraft is the global leader in cybercrime detection and disruption. We are a trusted partner for three of the four largest companies in the world and many large governments. We have blocked almost 200 million cyber-attacks to date, and we take down around 33% of the world's phishing attacks. Our purpose and passion are focused on just one thing: protecting the world from cybercrime. That passion shapes how we work, too. We are proud of our talented team and the value each person brings, and we have built a workplace where people feel supported and inspired.

The Role

We are searching for a Back End Engineer to join our growing engineering team. Based in either London, Manchester, or Bath, you will report to one of our Engineering Team Leads and work on the backend of our broad range of Internet exploration and cybercrime detection and disruption services. A key part of this role is maintaining and improving existing Perl-based platforms that support our core services. These systems are critical to the operation of our products, and the role requires engineers who take ownership of production systems and care deeply about their reliability, performance, and stability.

Over time, you will also have opportunities to contribute to incremental improvements and modernization of parts of the platform, including services written in Go and TypeScript, where appropriate. However, the primary focus of the role is operating, maintaining, and improving our existing systems. This role would suit an engineer who enjoys working on real-world production systems, taking ownership of services, and improving platforms over time rather than building greenfield systems from scratch.

Day to day, you will be:

• Designing and developing features and improvements to our products, while taking non-functional requirements like performance, reliability, and security into account.
• Maintaining and improving existing Perl-based systems, ensuring stability, maintainability, and operational reliability.
• Testing and documenting your work to a high standard with strong attention to detail.
• Taking responsibility for system maintenance, operational stability, and incident prevention.
• Responding to issues with a sense of urgency and ownership, identifying root causes and implementing long-term fixes.
• Identifying scaling bottlenecks and resolving them, while being conscious of running costs.
• Collaborating with other engineering teams to ensure services you own are well-integrated with their services.
• Working with cross-functional stakeholders to help propose, design and implement solutions to meet business needs.
• Working independently and proactively, identifying opportunities to improve systems and processes over time.
• Where appropriate, contributing to incremental improvements or new components using technologies such as Go or TypeScript.

What you will need to be successful:

• Experience developing and maintaining production backend systems, ideally including Perl or similar languages.
• The ability to work independently and take ownership of services and systems.
• Strong attention to detail, particularly when working with production systems.
• A proactive mindset with a sense of urgency when addressing operational issues or incidents.
• Experience working with SQL databases (such as MySQL or MariaDB), including schema design for both OLTP and OLAP workloads, and writing and optimising complex queries.
• Familiarity with common Unix command line tools (such as sed, grep, and AWK) and shell scripting.
• Comfortable packaging software using a Linux package manager, such as RPM or dpkg.
• Comfortable using configuration management tools, such as Puppet.
• Experience using Amazon EC2, S3, RDS, and SQS, or equivalent services at other cloud providers.
• Experience with version control systems, such as Git, and CI/CD pipelines.
• A good understanding of computer networking technologies, including TCP, IPv4, IPv6, DNS, HTTP, and TLS.
• Good written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to convey technical concepts clearly and concisely.

Bonus points if you have:

• Experience working with Go.
• Experience with TypeScript.
• Experience with asynchronous or event-based Perl programming, using libraries like AnyEvent or Coro.
• Exposure to Docker, Kubernetes, or other containerisation technologies.
• Experience working on large or long-lived production systems.
• A keen interest in cybercrime or cyber security.

The Reward Package

• 33 days annual leave - includes public holidays which can be worked if you prefer.
• Enhanced Sick Pay from day 1, rising to 12 weeks full pay after 6 months.
• Salary sacrifice pension with matched employer contributions up to 5% + NI savings.
• Vitality Private health cover, including access to a private GP service.
• Life Assurance at 4 x salary.
• Generous enhanced Parental leave and pay entitlements.
• Equity tracking scheme (eligibility criteria apply) - allowing you share in Netcraft's long-term success (Sonder).
• Comprehensive health, safety, and wellness service available 24/7 for you and your family.
• Two paid Learning & Development days per year plus access to learning resources such as Udemy and Coursera to support your career.
• Two Volunteering Days per year, to allow you to contribute to your wider community or charity.
• Meals, snacks, and drinks provided daily in the office.
• Employee Referral Bonus scheme.
• Hybrid and flexible working options.
• Spot reward bonus scheme to reward truly outstanding contributions.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

This is deeply important to us. Through our ally network, we support under-represented groups and maintain a working environment free from bias, harassment, or discrimination. We encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply. We are also happy to make adjustments to the hiring process to ensure every candidate can participate fully.