Senior Rails Engineer in Leeds

Our platform has been built from the ground up by a small, skilled development team over the past three years. We are appointing a Senior Rails Engineer at a pivotal moment, joining as a senior individual contributor with strong influence on product planning and the roadmap, owning two products in the TEP ecosystem, and acting as the senior technical reference point for the wider development team. You will work closely with our fractional CTO and the TEP Director to translate strategic priorities into well‑built software, helping us actively embed AI‑assisted development practices that we believe will significantly change how our team works over the next two years.

Supporting our early‑to‑mid‑career developers in their work comes alongside the technical role. We are a small, mission‑driven team and this is a high‑trust, high‑ownership role. The right person will care about the quality of what they build, be genuinely curious about the problems schools and trusts are trying to solve, and be excited about using AI tooling not as a shortcut but as a genuine accelerant for good work.

What you’ll inherit:

• A proven, established codebase. Three years of well‑considered Ruby on Rails development serving 600+ schools across the UK, Australia and the UAE, with active users, real data, and a roadmap shaped by partner feedback.
• A small, capable, agile team alongside you. Early‑mid‑career developers learning from your day‑to‑day practice, with a culture of peer review, pair programming and honest feedback already in place.
• A fractional CTO and an engaged Director. Architectural sounding board on one side, a Director who understands the platform and the partner base on the other. You will not be navigating priorities alone.
• A clear AI‑first direction. AI assisted development tools are in use and central to how we expect the team to work going forward. You will help shape that practice.
• Real product ambition. A roadmap that includes deeper data pipelines, international growth, and the underlying infrastructure to support a national‑scale evidence base.
• A base in Leeds. A vibrant, accessible city‑centre office at Platform, New Station Street, two minutes from Leeds station, in the heart of the northern tech hub. Remote‑first or office‑based at your preference.

Role responsibilities:

This is an individual contributor role, owning two products in the TEP ecosystem with strong influence on product planning and the roadmap, working closely with the TEP Director and our fractional CTO. You will write production code day to day, own architectural decisions across your scope alongside the fractional CTO, and act as the senior technical reference point for the development team.

Platform development:

• Write well‑tested, high‑quality code using Ruby on Rails and front‑end technologies, delivering features, fixing bugs and addressing technical debt.
• Work within our Trello and GitHub workflow and agile ways of working, reviewing code, maintaining pull request quality and upholding a strong peer review culture.
• Take ownership of architectural decisions on the platform, working with the fractional CTO to ensure they are sound, well‑reasoned and documented.
• Balance delivery pace with code quality. We want to move fast without accumulating debt.
• Contribute to the ongoing improvement of our development processes, tooling and ways of working as the team and platform grow.
• Lead on security and platform performance workstreams.
• Use AI‑assisted development tools (Claude Code and similar) as a genuine part of your daily working practice, not as an occasional aid.

Product planning:

• Collaborate with the Director and fractional CTO on roadmap prioritisation, balancing new features, fixes, security and technical debt with a clear view of capacity and complexity.
• Translate product priorities into well‑scoped, well‑estimated technical work, developing cards, running planning sessions and ensuring the team has clarity on what they are building and why.
• Engage in sprint planning and retrospectives, contributing to how we continuously improve our delivery cadence.
• Bring your own perspective on where AI tooling adds value and where it introduces risk. We want someone who uses these tools critically and thoughtfully.
• Contribute to how we think about AI in product development more broadly. This is an area we are actively investing in and your input will shape our approach.
• Provide the Director with clear, honest technical input on decisions that have a product or strategic dimension.

Problem solving:

• Respond to bug reports, both automated exceptions and human reports, working with the team to diagnose and resolve issues quickly.
• Maintain and improve platform reliability, security, monitoring and incident response processes.

Team development and mentoring:

• Provide day‑to‑day technical support for the development team, the senior technical reference point for our developers.
• Contribute to strategy and working culture as part of a small, growing organisation. We value people who engage beyond their immediate technical brief.
• Mentor and support the team’s growth through pair programming, code review, structured knowledge sharing and honest feedback.
• Help model and embed AI‑first working practices across the team, supporting the developers in building real fluency.
• Work with the TEP Director and fractional CTO on team development and ways of working.

About you:

We are open to a range of backgrounds. The right person will bring strong technical depth, creative problem solving and real enthusiasm for the way emergent technologies and AI are changing how development work gets done. You do not need to have worked in education or edtech before, but you should care about the mission.

What you’ll need:

• We imagine that most strong applicants will have 7+ years of relevant commercial Ruby experience, with strong Rails experience in production environments. We are more interested in your skills than where they came from.
• A strong instinct for code quality. You care about maintainability, test coverage and what the codebase looks like in two years, not just whether it ships today.
• Genuine, practical experience with AI‑assisted development tools. You use these comfortably and can speak with real authority about when and how they work.
• Comfort working in an evolving, established codebase. You are at ease with inherited code and incremental improvement.
• Familiarity with data pipelines, analytics infrastructure or big data.
• Translating product priorities into well‑scoped technical work. You are comfortable bridging product and engineering.
• Strong communication skills. You can explain complex technical decisions clearly to a non‑technical Director and work effectively with a fractional CTO.

What will set you apart:

• Experience working in Python.
• Experience significantly contributing to a small development team, not just individual delivery, but helping others do their best work.
• An interest in education, social enterprise or the tech for good context.

Additional information:

• Location: Hybrid, Leeds, UK
• Salary: £59,680 - £77,038