Senior Software Engineer (Elixir)

3 billion people across the world work in frontline jobs. Yet, despite rising costs and staff shortages, frontline organisations are still left to choose between paper, Excel, and WhatsApp, or decade-old workforce management solutions to take care of the most important part of their businesses - their people. Enter Sona: the next generation of AI-native, frontline workforce management. We've built an end-to-end platform covering Scheduling, HR, Payroll, and Communications that gives the largest frontline organisations everything they need to staff more intelligently and empower their teams. In under 5 years, we've already made a deep impact on the lives of over 100k frontline workers and the operation of their organisations, grown the team to 140+, and secured over $100M in funding from notable VCs, including our Series B led by N47 alongside Felicis, Northzone, and Gradient Ventures (Google). It's a hugely exciting time to be joining the team as we're still small enough that you'll have a significant impact on the company's growth trajectory and culture, yet large enough to have a great structure, experienced leaders and world-class benefits in place.

About the Role

We're hiring Senior Software Engineers to join our product teams and help build the next generation of workforce management. This isn't a traditional engineering role - at Sona, engineers are deeply embedded in the product development process, working directly with customers to understand their pain points and turning those insights into shipped solutions. AI tooling is central to how we work. Coding agents produce the majority of our code, and your job is to direct, correct, and architect - not type every line yourself. You'll use tools like Claude Code, Cursor, or similar as a core part of your daily workflow, and we'll assess that proficiency as part of the interview process. To do that well, you need strong Elixir expertise - enough to know when an agent's output is wrong and how to fix it. Day to day, you'll work within a cross-functional product team with significant autonomy over how to reach outcomes. You'll participate in defining features and scope from PR FAQs and kick-off conversations rather than picking up fully specified tickets. You'll also have the opportunity to rotate across different product domains throughout the year - scheduling, payroll, HR, staff engagement - giving you breadth that most engineering roles don't offer. This role is remote-first for anyone based in a European timezone, with quarterly in-person team alignment sessions and client workshops in London. It's not a fully isolated remote setup - you'll need flexibility to travel for the moments that matter.

Responsibilities

• Own features end-to-end across Sona's platform, from scoping through to delivery, including in the mobile app
• Use AI development tooling as your primary workflow - directing and evaluating agent-produced code, not writing everything from scratch
• Work directly with customers through workshops, feedback sessions, and discovery conversations to ensure what you build solves real problems
• Collaborate closely with Product Managers and Product Designers to shape solutions from vague requirements and kick‑off outputs
• Contribute to multiple product domains across the year, building deep understanding of workforce management challenges
• Participate in the product development process - challenging scope, suggesting approaches, and making pragmatic trade‑offs between the ideal solution and the right one for now

Requirements

• You're a senior engineer who's comfortable owning features from scoping to production - not just executing against a spec
• You have professional Elixir experience - enough to evaluate and correct agent-produced code in a production codebase
• AI development tooling is already embedded in how you work, not something you've experimented with once or twice. You can articulate your workflows and demonstrate them under pressure
• You care about understanding customer problems as much as solving technical ones, and you're comfortable being in front of customers directly
• You communicate clearly and concisely - adapting for technical and non‑technical audiences alike
• You're pragmatic: you can let go of a strongly held opinion when the situation calls for it, and you make trade‑offs consciously

Bonus: full‑stack experience including React Native, background at a product‑led engineering team or high‑growth B2B SaaS company, or familiarity with HR/workforce management domains.

Benefits

• Salary: £85-105k
• Remote‑first (Europe timezone) with quarterly in‑person sessions and client workshops in London
• Share options
• 35 days annual leave (25 days standard plus 10 flexible public holiday days)
• Extra day of leave for every year of service
• Pension contributions matched up to 5%
• Comprehensive health insurance
• Enhanced parental leave & pay
• Co‑working space stipend for those based outside London
• Annual all expenses paid team retreats
• The latest Macbook and equipment budget for your home office
• Professional development budget
• Unlimited free books

Note: this represents a typical salary and benefits package for a UK‑based, full‑time employee. Exact details may vary based on location and employment type but we try to be as fair as possible to all of our team members. Please ask your contact in the Talent team to clarify the available benefits for you.