Java Engineer

Salary: Competitive Plus Benefits

Location: London Store Support Centre and Home, London, EC1M 6HA

Contract type: Permanent

Business area: Sainsbury's Tech

Closing date: 05 January 2026

We’d all like amazing work to do, and real work-life balance. That’s waiting for you at Sainsbury’s. Think about the scale it takes for us to feed the nation. The level of data, transactions and variety it involves. Then you’ll realise that ours is a modern software engineering environment because it has to be. We’ve made serious investment into a Tech Academy and into setting standards and principles. We iterate, learn, experiment and push ways of working such as Agile, Scrum and XP. So you can look forward to awesome opportunities in everything from AI to reusable tech.

We’re a multi-channel, multi-brand business serving millions of customers a day, with the UK’s largest loyalty scheme and an ever-evolving set of digital platforms. All of this equals over 1.2 billion transactions each year, presenting a volume, depth, and complexity of data that few can match.

We don’t think we’re exaggerating when we say we have the most exciting data set in the country. From the insights gained, we build scalable, high-performance products using cutting-edge technology that give our customers an amazing shopping experience – like our award-winning Smartshop app. In an inclusive, agile environment, you’ll have the space to be curious, to experiment, and to solve real-world challenges. And you’ll get to see your creations in the hands of millions of people across the UK.

As a Java Engineer, you’ll be part of one of our Engineering teams, creating great products by interpreting and following best practice architectural and engineering principles, operating frameworks, and new and improved tech applications and solutions. Using Java (8+) with tools and frameworks like Spring Boot, Hibernate and Maven, you’ll own the design and development of large-scale, high performance services, including websites, apps, microservices and event driven architecture.

We’d also like you to be yourself – analytical, curious and unafraid to learn new skills or challenge the status quo. You’ll constantly strive to improve the way things are done in your team, contributing as a progressive member of the engineering community.

More about the role:

• You’ll own the design and development of large-scale high performance services using Java (17+) with tools and frameworks like Spring Boot and Maven.
• This includes websites, apps, microservices and event driven architecture.
• You’ll contribute to our product technical roadmap.
• You’ll work with cloud and container technologies such as Kubernetes on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud Platform.
• You’ll lead the design and support of services and internal frameworks that enhance Sainsbury’s Group capabilities.
• Engineering throughout the whole product lifecycle, including decommissioning.
• You’ll consider the cost and service support implications of your engineering choices.

More about you:

• Possess strong programming language expertise in Java and Spring Boot.
• Expertise in engineering practice, including knowledge of engineering, architectural principles, unit testing, TDD.
• Proven experience of software design and implementation, security, cloud, infrastructure as code and CI/CD and any relevant hardware.
• Self-drive and constantly striving to improve your team, division and peers.
• Drive for advocacy of agile/lean delivery methodologies.
• A passion for delivering solutions to customers, owning the whole SDLC and living the DevSecOps principles.
• A passion for enhancing your knowledge and evidence curiosity in emerging tech.
• Display empathy and understanding in supporting colleagues in the team to deliver.

Colleague discount across our multi-brands – Sainsbury’s, Argos and Habitat.

Pension plan.

Flexible / Smarter working policy.

Special offers on gym memberships, restaurants, holidays, retail vouchers and more.

Work-life balance is important to us, so we offer our colleagues as much flexibility as possible in line with the needs of their role. We trust them to decide how, where and when they work, combining remote and collaborative working with a flexible approach to hours, giving them plenty of time and space for life outside of work whilst delivering against our business goals.