Senior Software Engineer (Full-Stack - Python/TypeScript) in London

Our Future Health is an ambitious collaboration between the public, charity and private sectors, designed to help people live healthier lives for longer through better prevention, earlier detection and improved treatment of diseases. We will speed up the discovery of new methods of early disease detection, and the evaluation of new diagnostic tools, to help identify and treat diseases early, when outcomes are usually better. With over 2.5M volunteers across the UK, we’re now the world’s biggest health research programme of its kind, and our volunteer group is also more diverse than other, similar health research programmes. Technology and data are central to our mission. Our systems power websites, clinics across the UK, secure analytics and research systems, pipelines that process highly sensitive health and genetic data, and we are continuing to grow our engineering capability to support this ambition.

We are looking for a Full-Stack Senior Software Engineer to join our cross-functional Health Insights squad. Join us at an early stage as we develop a platform that delivers personalised health insights to millions of participants across the UK. You’ll help shape systems working with complex, sensitive health and genetic data, supporting meaningful, real-world outcomes.

In this role, you will:

• Help shape the architecture and direction of an early-stage platform
• Work on backend and data-intensive systems handling sensitive health data
• Contribute across backend, frontend, and infrastructure as part of a full-stack squad
• Support the evolution of the platform as it grows in scale, complexity, and impact

Our tech-stack includes Python, TypeScript, Next.js, PostgreSQL, Terraform (IaC), running in Azure (Kubernetes and Azure App Service). Our engineers are full-stack, handling frontend, backend and infrastructure in a total ownership model - squads build and run it. As the platform grows, you’ll help evolve the system to support new types of data, increased scale, and more advanced processing needs, with the opportunity to influence how it develops over time. At senior level, you’ll bring strong technical experience within your team, offering guidance and direction on key areas of engineering and architecture. You’ll support others through mentoring and collaboration, while also contributing to the wider technical direction of the organisation over time.

Responsibilities include:

• Contributing to shaping both the product and the technology, bringing a user-centred, outcome-focused mindset and collaborating closely with product, design and other disciplines to deliver meaningful value to participants
• Hands-on development of new features, iterating on existing features, addressing product- or tech debt at the right time and contributing to continuously improving the quality of the code base
• Supporting your colleagues with pairing, code reviews, feedback, discussion, and other collaborative activities that help everyone reach high standards and result in the delivery of high-quality software products
• Engaging in sessions for refining requirements and formulating architectural proposals in support of upcoming initiatives
• Engaging in reflective sessions such as retrospectives to offer suggestions on how we can improve and help to drive change
• Collaborating with internal squads that use shared tooling built by the squad, and other platform squads
• Participating in live operations support, monitoring live systems and quickly and effectively reacting to potential incidents
• Participation and contribution into wider engineering initiatives that look to evolve highly effective ways of working that fit for Our Future Health and work for the benefit of the Our Future Health engineering community

We welcome applications from all who may not feel they match the full criteria, so if you have most of the below, we'd like to hear from you:

Technical Skills

• Experience building cloud-hosted consumer applications using open source technologies such as Python or Node
• Knowledge of modern frontend development, including JavaScript/TypeScript with frameworks like React or Next.js, and experience building intuitive, user-focused interfaces
• Experience designing and implementing backend systems, ideally using Python for data movement, processing, and storage
• Experience working on consumer-facing products where experimentation, rapid iteration, and learning from user behaviour are important
• Prior experience with Azure (ideally), AWS or GCP
• Comfortable working with Infrastructure as Code, ideally with knowledge of Terraform
• Knowledge of good data modelling and design patterns; in-depth knowledge of relational databases (e.g. PostgreSQL) and familiarity with other types of data store (blob, document, graph)
• Expertise in modern, agile development practices like code review, TDD, CI/CD and pairing using tools like Git and GitHub
• Experience of operationally managing software components once live, including observability, logging, metrics, error reporting, debugging and live incident management
• Experience of working with sensitive personal data

Competencies

• Experience working in/with cross-functional teams consisting of e.g. engineers, product, UX and non-technical stakeholders
• Ability to communicate with stakeholders and audiences outside your own team
• Experience working in small, growing organisations with a high degree of ambiguity, where flexibility is valued
• Strong understanding of software quality principles and practices
• Comfortable in mentoring and coaching less experienced engineers
• Comfortable in taking part in- and sometimes facilitating technical discussions

Benefits

• Competitive base salary from £88,000
• Generous Pension Scheme – We invest in your future with employer contributions of up to 12%
• 30 Days Holiday pro rata + Bank Holidays – Enjoy a generous holiday allowance with the flexibility to take bank holidays when it suits you
• Enhanced Parental Leave – Supporting you during life’s biggest moments
• Cycle to Work Scheme – Save 25-39% on a new bike and accessories through salary sacrifice
• Home & Tech Savings – Get up to 8% off on IKEA and Currys products, spreading the cost over 12 months through salary sacrifice
• EV Scheme – Save up to 40% on a brand new electric vehicle all-inclusive package through salary sacrifice
• £1,000 Employee Referral Bonus – Know someone amazing? Get rewarded for bringing them on board!
• Wellbeing Support – Access to Mental Health First Aiders, plus 24/7 online GP services and an Employee Assistance Programme for you and your family
• A Great Place to Work – We have a lovely Central London office in Holborn, and offer flexible and remote working arrangements

Join us - let’s prevent disease together. We recommend you apply as soon as possible as occasionally due to high volumes of applications, we need to close our postings early. At Our Future Health, we recognise the importance of having a diverse workforce and ensuring that all candidates, regardless of their background, have equitable access to our application process. We proactively encourage applicants who identify as having a disability, neurodiversity, or long-term health conditions to let us know if they require any reasonable adjustments as part of their application process. If you do require any reasonable adjustments, please email us.