Senior Software Engineer

About Sedex

More than 100,000 businesses across the world have made Sedex their trusted partner in creating a more socially and environmentally sustainable supply chain. From our platform’s unrivalled data insights to our team’s expert guidance, Sedex makes it easy for companies to manage, assess and report on sustainability performance. Our Vision is to be a leader in making global supply chains more socially and environmentally sustainable. Our Mission is to supply data-driven insight through the most accessible tools and services. We engage with companies and our community to continuously improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) outcomes.

The Role

We are looking for an experienced senior software engineer to join one of our multi-functional product delivery teams. You will primarily work on backend services in Kotlin but will be expected to contribute to the frontend codebase (React.js) at times as well, with support from our frontend specialists. You will be a product-minded engineer, working together with the product manager and designer in your team to understand customer needs and write software to meet them. You will work with the other engineers in your team and across the business to design and build maintainable, secure and reliable systems in an iterative fashion. You will contribute to a culture of DevOps and Continuous Delivery, where 10+ deploys to production per day are done in a safe, tested manner and the team owns the operability, performance and other non-functional requirements of the software it builds. You will make full use of modern development tooling, automation, and AI coding assistants to work at a high level of productivity without compromising on quality.

Key Responsibilities

• In the first 3 months you will:

• Familiarise yourself with the domain and systems within the scope of your team
• Understand the overall architectural landscape in which your systems live
• Gain an in-depth understanding of the production environment setup, CI/CD pipelines and deployment processes
• Familiarise with and begin monitoring the operational data and metrics from the production environment
• Become productive and begin owning and shipping features
• Build relationships cross-team and cross-function
• Make a positive impact to your team, establishing yourself as open and approachable, with a wealth of knowledge and experience to draw upon
• Understand and settle into the team processes and cycles, and start forming ideas on how they can be improved
• Develop a solid grounding in your understanding of the business and how it operates

Ongoing responsibilities:

• The design and implementation of innovative solutions and architectures through high-quality test-driven code
• The intelligent break-down of deliverables in a way that facilitates the constant and iterative delivery of value to our customers
• To pass the benefit of your knowledge and experience on to the team via code review, your contributions in planning activities, retrospectives, knowledge sharing sessions, etc
• Mentoring and coaching more junior / less experienced members of the team, role-modelling an open, positive, progressive, and results-orientated approach
• Identifying and articulating technical risk, tech-debt, and non-functional requirements to both technical and non-technical audiences
• Championing of a data-driven approach, advocating for and educating around the metrics that we use, and routinely applying their interpretation in the planning of work
• Monitoring and supporting your code in production
• Contribution to the wider engineering community at Sedex
• Using AI coding assistants as a core part of your daily development workflow — for writing and refactoring code, generating tests, and exploring implementation approaches
• Critically evaluating AI-generated output before integrating it, ensuring correctness, security, and maintainability
• Role-modelling effective AI-assisted practices for the team, and helping less experienced engineers develop sound judgment about when and how to use these tools

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

You should have:

• 5+ years of commercial experience working in software engineering teams, using agile methodologies and test-driven approaches
• Highly proficient in a backend programming language - Kotlin, Java, C#, Go, TypeScript/JavaScript (Node.js), Python etc
• Deep knowledge of automated testing at various levels and the use of TDD to drive your software design
• A good understanding of modern architectural patterns and designs, including service-oriented architecture, API design, and integration patterns
• Knowledge of containerisation for packaging applications and running them locally and in the cloud (Docker, Kubernetes, Helm)
• Good knowledge of database design and the ability to write software that interacts with both relational and NoSQL databases
• Good knowledge of message-based architectures using technologies like Apache Kafka
• Deep knowledge of CI/CD and a DevOps mindset
• A keen focus on creating customer value
• A strong sense of accountability and ownership
• A results-oriented mindset
• Positivity in the face of change, and an advocate for continuous evolution of the team and its capabilities
• Excellent communication skills, including writing technical documentation where required
• A desire to work collaboratively with other engineers (pair-programming, mobbing)
• Experience coaching/mentoring less experienced colleagues
• Hands-on experience using AI coding assistants in your development workflow, with the judgment to critically evaluate their output and recognise when not to rely on them

Bonus points for:

• Expertise in Kotlin on the JVM
• Experience in writing web frontends using React.js

What exceptional candidates often look like

• They deliver high-quality software consistently and take pride in the craft
• They write code that others find easy to read, test, and extend
• They think carefully about how their code behaves in production
• They simplify rather than over-engineer
• They look for opportunities to automate repetitive work
• They seek feedback proactively and act on it quickly
• They show genuine curiosity — they read the codebase, ask good questions, and invest in understanding the why
• They use AI coding assistants with skill and judgment — getting strong results while critically interrogating output and knowing when not to rely on them
• They raise the bar for the engineers around them, through code review, mentoring, and example

Our Culture

At Sedex, our approach to business and culture is firmly rooted in our core values, which guide everything we do: Respect Each Other: We believe that a foundation of mutual respect is essential to creating a positive and inclusive environment. Customer-Driven: We are passionate about delivering exceptional value to our customers. By listening to their needs, understanding their challenges, and continuously adapting our solutions, we aim to empower them to achieve their sustainability goals and drive positive change in their supply chains. Thinking Creatively: Innovation is at the heart of our work. We encourage creative problem-solving and embrace new ideas that challenge the status quo. This mindset allows us to continuously improve our products and services, offering fresh and effective solutions to complex sustainability and ethical sourcing issues. Take Ownership: We empower our team members to take responsibility for their actions and outcomes. Every person at Sedex is encouraged to own their work, make decisions with confidence, and contribute proactively to the success of the team and the business. Deliver Results: We are results-oriented and committed to delivering tangible, impactful outcomes for our customers, our business, and society at large. We want everyone to feel they can be themselves and thrive at work - in every country, in everything we do, every day. We are focused on providing a culture characterised by inclusive everyday behaviours built on a foundation of respect and appreciation for diversity in all its forms.