Senior Software Engineer in London

Senior Software Engineer in London

London Full-Time On-site
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Ship real things for real families from week one. Own features end to end, grow fast, and get handed more of the system every quarter.About the roleWhen someone dies, their family inherits a mountain of admin. A will is the single most useful thing that makes it smaller, but only if it’s correct, current and actually says what the person meant. That’s the bar our code has to clear, every time.As a software engineer, you’ll own features from the first conversation to production. You won’t get a ticket with the answer already written on it. You’ll get a problem, the context behind it, and someone to think it through with.The scope you own grows as fast as you do. Small team, lots of surface area: if you want more responsibility, it’s there to take.The teamEngineering is small but mighty, and growing. You’ll work alongside Product, Design and the legal specialists who know every edge case by heart. You’ll join the team where you can make the most difference as roles fill, and you’ll have a say in where that is.We work in small, stable teams that own a product area end to end, from the first conversation with legal to the alert that fires if it breaks. Nobody hands you a ticket and walks away. Teams decide how to solve the problems in front of them, and often which problems are worth solving at all. Decisions are written down, reviewed kindly and revisited when we learn something new.We’re AI-native. Frontier models, best-in-class agentic tooling, and nobody counts tokens. That pushes the job away from boilerplate and towards the parts that need a person: architecture, judgement, and getting the detail right. Families come to us for a will or for probate, not for software, so we’re not racing the models. Every time they improve, so does the service families get. We ship to production 20+ times a day across 7+ services.What you’ll doMost weeks are a mix of building, reviewing and learning the domain. Some of the work you’ll pick up:Build features end to end: the API, the data model, the UI if it needs one, and the tests that keep it honest.Turn a family’s answers into correct, signed documents, edge cases included.Use agentic tools to move fast, and review what they write as carefully as you’d review a colleague.Own what you ship in production. Dashboards, alerts and the occasional fix are yours.Bring opinions to design reviews. We’d rather hear the half-formed idea than miss it.Your first 90 daysWeek one: first PR in production, paired with someone who knows the codebase.Ship a feature you scoped yourself, from first conversation to customers.Know a corner of the system well enough that people bring their questions about it to you.Spot something that bugs you about how we work and fix it, without asking permission.What we’re looking forWe care more about how you approach problems than a list of keywords. That said, here’s what tends to make someone successful in this role.You’ll needA few years building and shipping production software. The language matters less than how you use it.You write tests that describe behaviour, not implementation.Comfort with relational data models and SQL.Curiosity about agentic coding, and the discipline to check its work.Nice to havePython or TypeScript in production.Serverless on AWS: Lambda, API Gateway, the lot.Experience in a regulated domain: legal, financial or health.Don’t tick every box? Apply anyway. We hire for how you think, not a checklist.What you’ll work withLanguages: Python 3.12, TypeScriptFrontend: Next.jsInfra: Terraform, AWS, GCPAgents: Claude Code, Cursor, whatever you’re fastest inObserve: CloudWatch, SentryThe honest bitsEvery codebase has them. Better you hear it from us.Debt: Part of our estate is a PHP service we’re migrating off. You might be the one who retires it.Rope: You’ll get responsibility earlier than you might elsewhere. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable. We’ll back you through it.Regs: Regulated, sensitive data. Some changes need a second pair of eyes from legal, and that’s on purpose.Pace: We ship often, but “move fast and break things” isn’t an option when the thing is someone’s will.You’ll probably enjoy this ifYou want to own outcomes, not just close tickets.You learn fastest by shipping something and seeing what happens.You can talk about death plainly. Our users are planning for it or living through it.What we offerListed, not teased. If something matters to you and isn’t here, ask in your first call.Holiday: 27 days +

Senior Software Engineer in London employer: Octopus Legacy

At Octopus Legacy, we pride ourselves on being an exceptional employer that values innovation and personal growth. Our flexible working arrangements, including the option to work remotely and generous benefits like additional holiday for your birthday and a share incentive scheme, create a supportive environment where employees can thrive. Join our passionate team in London Bridge, where you'll have the opportunity to make a meaningful impact while developing your skills in a rapidly growing company dedicated to helping others during life's toughest moments.

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Contact Details:

Octopus Legacy Recruitment Team